Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Covid-19 response and recovery by tribes and urban Indian organizations in Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2024) Sorrell, Anna Whiting; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Alexandra K. Adams; This is a manuscript style paper that includes co-authored chapters.Research shows American Indians and Alaska Natives' resilience when they are connected to cultural lifeways, beliefs, and in relationship with families, their communities, and Tribes. It aids in traumatic times. This was true during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, it still disproportionally affected AIANs in the number of cases, hospitalizations, stays in intensive care units, deaths, and at younger ages than non-Hispanic Whites. This unequal impact of COVID-19 may be explained using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's social determinants of health, but also raises doubt on the accuracy and thoroughness of data collected for AIANs. Additionally, when Tribes and urban Indian organizations responded to meet the needs of their members and communities, there were positive outcomes. This dissertation shows lessons learned in the response and recovery led by Tribes and Urban Indian Organizations, while successful, may have been improved if their actions were guided by a Tribal or UIO specific, comprehensive emergency preparedness plan. The literature review is a comprehensive examination of available reports, newspaper stories, and journal articles. It found there are gaps in available data that is tribal or UIO specific that has confidence of accuracy and cultural appropriateness as determined by Indigenous researchers. The co-authored manuscript focuses on the social, mental, physical, and spiritual impact COVID-19 had on one Native American and one Hispanic community. While the findings of the study revealed the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic on each of these qualities, there were positive realization about resilience and adaptability. The third dissertation product builds on the findings of the first two products and interviews from two Tribes and one UIO to create an Indigenous strategic planning process for Tribes and UIOs to use when they develop their own emergency preparedness plan to guide their response to the next emergency, crisis, or pandemic. These plans must be written by the Tribe or UIO and incorporate tribal lifeways, beliefs, and values, and shared with key stakeholders. Collectively, the three dissertation products affirm Indigenous leadership is fully capable of directing Tribes and UIOs recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and set plans to prepare for the next emergent event.Item Resilience assessment of active distribution networks(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2021) Miller, Ryan Jared Alexander; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Maryam BahramipanahPower system resilience focuses on a system's ability to prepare for and recover from events which would severely degrade its performance. With severe weather events and regional disasters such as hurricanes, polar vortex cold, and wildfires increasing in frequency and intensity in recent years, work toward simulation and quantification techniques of power system resilience is more necessary than ever. To generate a realistic model, this work produces a geographic topography to geographically lay out and test power system. Furthermore, different extreme events such as flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, and tornadoes are modeled, and the proposed technique evaluates their impacts on the power system degradation and resilience. The availability of recovery resources and several stochastic recovery dynamics that modify the system's depth of degradation and recovery profile during repair time are studied in this work. Multiple resilience metrics are proposed to aid in analyzing the system's recovery performance. The performance of this proposed technique is then evaluated for a flood of intermediate intensity which causes component failures and system outages within the grid. System recovery resources are varied by adjusting the number of crews who can simultaneously repair the system. Resilience indices are evaluated, and it is shown that with increasing availability of repair crews and recovery resources, the system resilience improves. The proposed strategy can be applied to an arbitrary test system with ease. Different strategies such as energy storage management and repair prioritization can be modified in future works to test potential improvements or optimizations for a given test system under the occurrence of a specific extreme event.Item Nuclear radiation awareness for residents of Cascade County-Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 2006) Strand, Aven Lynn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Susan LuparellThe potential of a radiation mishap is real and lack of public awareness only potentiates the devastating outcomes on the citizens in the effected area should one occur. Low-level exposures of radiation may result in cancer and leukemia. A radiation mishap can occur at a missile site, a research or medical facility using radioactive material, a fixed nuclear facility, during nuclear detonation, and during transport of nuclear material. Guidance and education for limiting personal radiation exposure and how to combat radiation hazards would effectively reduce the number of individuals exposed if such a disaster were to occur. The intent of this project was to create an educational tool that would guide the residents of Cascade County in radiation awareness and ways to minimize radiation exposure to themselves and their families should a mishap occur. The outcome was the creation of a brochure for Cascade County's Disaster and Emergency Services department to use as an educational tool for the residents of Cascade County for radiation disaster preparedness. The brochure provides an organized, reader friendly outline of prevention of radiation exposure.