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Item Fertility and reproductive health decisions connected to climate change and adaptation in Greenland(Montana State University - Bozeman, The Graduate School, 2024) Peterson, Malory Kaye; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Elizabeth Rink; This is a manuscript style paper that includes co-authored chapters.The capacity for Kalaallit, the Inuit people of Greenland, to adapt to the effects of climate change will depend on sociodemographic change, population distribution, and existing health inequities in the country. Reproduction in Greenland is influenced by connection to place and access to natural resources, factors that will vary with climate adaptation. Given existing fertility and reproductive health disparities among Kalaallit women, there is a compelling reason to explore how climate change effects and adaptation might influence fertility decisions and population dynamics in Greenland. Rooted in the principles of community based participatory research, this exploratory and comparative study investigated the social, environmental, and economic resources that affect fertility decisions for Kalaallit in Greenland. The research presented contextualizes drivers of fertility decisions within Greenland's climate adaptation policy options and presents strategies to guide health studies in Greenland with principles of community based participatory research. Interviews were conducted with 35 reproductive-aged (18-49 years) men and women and 26 interviews with policymakers and key stakeholders in two communities about climate adaptation, natural resources, economic development, and fertility and reproductive health. Interviews were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory in collaboration with a Kalaallit community research partner. Results indicate that improving community capacity to address existing housing, education, and economic inequities is critical to supporting fertility and reproductive health, irrespective of climate change impacts. Participants observed climate change effects and expressed positive attitudes about Kalaallit ability to adapt and capitalize on benefits of climate change. Evidence from this study indicates that addressing development disparities in Greenland may immediately support fertility and reproductive health for Kalaallit people and facilitate equitable climate adaptation.Item Effect of process variables on the uncured handleability and formability of stretch broken carbon fiber(Montana State University - Bozeman, The Graduate School, 2022) Rezaul, Riad Morshed; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Cecily A. RyanCarbon fiber is a high-performance reinforcing material used extensively in aerospace composites. Although carbon fiber is used in both continuous and discontinuous form, the continuous carbon fiber is limited by its inability to stretch due to its low strain to failure during manufacturing structures with complex geometries. Stretch broken carbon fiber (SBCF) is a type of discontinuous and aligned carbon fiber which has the potential to solve this limitation of inextensibility of its continuous counterpart. The discontinuous nature of SBCF enhances its stretchability making this material a prime candidate for manufacturing parts with complex curvatures. SBCF is generated by stretching the fibers using a pair of differentially driven rollers, which breaks the fibers at their intrinsic flaws. Although SBCF can be stretched due to being discontinuous, it compromises the tensile strength due to the lack of fiber continuity. Therefore, a polymeric coating known as sizing is applied to the SBCF to reconstruct its tensile strength. In the context of SBCF production, sizing serves two important functions. Firstly, sizing provides uncured carbon fiber the desired handleability and back-tension ability. Secondly, sizing enhances the formability of SBCF, which is a defined as the ease at which a material can be formed into a desired shape without failure. The goal of this work is to investigate the effect of process variables on the generation of stretch broken carbon fiber with consistent and repeatable material properties. The stretch broken carbon fiber research group at Montana State University (MSU) has developed a stretch breaking machine known as 'Bobcat' to generate single tow MSU SBCF. The noteworthy process variables related to MSU SBCF production includes sizing deposition on the tow, stretch ratio, nip force, line speed, fiber length distribution, and tow tenacity. Target amount of sizing deposition on MSU SBCF tow was achieved by choosing an appropriate sizing bath. A temperature-controlled tow tenacity result suggests that MSU SBCF possesses adequate handleability, back-tension ability and formability. MSU SBCF also shows a narrow fiber length distribution and relatively short mean fiber length which indicate improved formability. Reproducibility of these results were observed in the replicate batches of MSU SBCF. Suitable stretch ratio and nip force regimes were identified to optimize MSU SBCF production.Item An exploration of whole-genome comparative genomic strategies for polyploid crop genomes(Montana State University - Bozeman, The Graduate School, 2022) Reynolds, Gillian Lucy; Co-chairs, Graduate Committee: Brendan Mumey and Jennifer A. LachowiecGenome comparison for large and complex polyploid crop genomes is a highly complex venture, yet it is critical. Given a rising demand for food coupled with yield-impacting resource limitations and rapidly changing global climates it has never been more important to characterise the underlying genetic variation which underpins traits of agronomic interest. In this work, the problem of polyploidy genome comparison is explored at three levels. The first chapter characterizes the sequence relationships that exist between, and within, polyploidy genomes. This is achieved by hijacking a metagenomic strategy for rapid, and efficient, genome sequence classification. The second chapter then utilizes the identified subgenome- specific k-mer profiles for recruitment of assembled contigs and scaffolds previously only recruitable via more resource intensive optical mapping strategies. This makes a greater proportion of the assembled data usable for downstream variant analysis. The third chapter then zooms into the problem of how to identify variants from large -scale sequencing data while minimizing bias and computational costs. A critical assessment of modern variant calling for crop genomes is performed and an algorithm to further extend a new, resource efficient, approach for large scale comparative genomics is presented and critically evaluated. In all, the work presented herein takes a top-down journey from genome- and subgenome- level comparative genomics all the way to identifying base-pair resolution strategies that are capable of revealing the underlying sequences responsible for keeping the world fed.Item Effect of process variables on the uncured handleability and formability of stretch broken carbon fiber(Montana State University - Bozeman, The Graduate School, 2022) Rezaul, Riad Morshed; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Cecily A. RyanCarbon fiber is a high-performance reinforcing material used extensively in aerospace composites. Although carbon fiber is used in both continuous and discontinuous form, the continuous carbon fiber is limited by its inability to stretch due to its low strain to failure during manufacturing structures with complex geometries. Stretch broken carbon fiber (SBCF) is a type of discontinuous and aligned carbon fiber which has the potential to solve this limitation of inextensibility of its continuous counterpart. The discontinuous nature of SBCF enhances its stretchability making this material a prime candidate for manufacturing parts with complex curvatures. SBCF is generated by stretching the fibers using a pair of differentially driven rollers, which breaks the fibers at their intrinsic flaws. Although SBCF can be stretched due to being discontinuous, it compromises the tensile strength due to the lack of fiber continuity. Therefore, a polymeric coating known as sizing is applied to the SBCF to reconstruct its tensile strength. In the context of SBCF production, sizing serves two important functions. Firstly, sizing provides uncured carbon fiber the desired handleability and back-tension ability. Secondly, sizing enhances the formability of SBCF, which is a defined as the ease at which a material can be formed into a desired shape without failure. The goal of this work is to investigate the effect of process variables on the generation of stretch broken carbon fiber with consistent and repeatable material properties. The stretch broken carbon fiber research group at Montana State University (MSU) has developed a stretch breaking machine known as 'Bobcat' to generate single tow MSU SBCF. The noteworthy process variables related to MSU SBCF production includes sizing deposition on the tow, stretch ratio, nip force, line speed, fiber length distribution, and tow tenacity. Target amount of sizing deposition on MSU SBCF tow was achieved by choosing an appropriate sizing bath. A temperature-controlled tow tenacity result suggests that MSU SBCF possesses adequate handleability, back-tension ability and formability. MSU SBCF also shows a narrow fiber length distribution and relatively short mean fiber length which indicate improved formability. Reproducibility of these results were observed in the replicate batches of MSU SBCF. Suitable stretch ratio and nip force regimes were identified to optimize MSU SBCF production.Item Diet-induced alterations to postprandial metabolism and the gut microbiota(Montana State University - Bozeman, The Graduate School, 2022) Wilson, Stephanie Michelle-Gandia; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary P. Miles; This is a manuscript style paper that includes co-authored chapters.Obesity is a key component of a cluster of metabolic risk factors for chronic disease which include dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia, and hypertension. Stark changes in diet and lifestyle contribute to growing metabolic disorder prevalence. Many Americans regularly consume foods low in fiber and rich in fat and sugar, which can negatively influence glucose and lipid metabolism over time. A nutritionally poor diet exerts deleterious effects on the gastrointestinal microbial community which has larger host health implications. As a modifiable risk factor, diet can be part of the solution to counter the rise of chronic disease. However, dietary responses as it pertains to glucose and lipid metabolism display high interindividual variability. This interindividual variability with diet can also be observed at the microbial level in our gastrointestinal system. In metabolically at-risk adults, we examined postprandial responses and the efficacy of a long-term lentil dietary intervention in improving postprandial glycemic responses. We further assessed the effect of an antioxidant-rich juice from the Aronia melanocarpa berry and its anti-inflammatory potential against a high fat diet in a gnotobiotic mouse model to evaluate how specific gut microbial communities transferred from metabolically at-risk adults with different inflammatory profiles may impact dietary responses. Postprandial triglyceride responses in adults with overweight and obesity can be partially explained by central adiposity, insulin resistance, and the ability to switch between glucose and fat metabolism to a metabolic stress. A long-term dietary intervention with lentils, a fiber-rich pulse crop, worked in a dose-dependent manner to reduce insulin resistance in adults with increased central adiposity without an increase in gastrointestinal symptoms, a common deterrent to incorporating fiber-foods in the diet. Our gnotobiotic mouse experiments revealed donor- dependent changes in dietary responses. We observed protective effects of Aronia juice in mice, particularly in mice from the low inflammation stool donor. Metabolomic changes in phospholipids such as phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin were further detected, with changes respectively unique to Aronia juice and high-fat diet. Taken together, this dissertation provides an improved understanding of our metabolic responses and microbial alterations to the foods we consume, and how these responses influence the progression of metabolic diseases.Item Toward a learning orientation: the impact of design thinking pedagogy on creative identity formation in the first-year experience(Montana State University - Bozeman, The Graduate School, 2022) Konkel, Margaret Thomas; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ann Ewbank; This is a manuscript style paper that includes co-authored chapters.Education and identity are connected in important ways, especially during college. College students inhabit an in-between state, having gained independence from their parents but not yet committed in other capacities. College students emerge into adulthood through identity exploration and optimism about their future while feeling the instability and self-focus of an in-between place. Creativity, and the problem-solving behaviors associated with it, may play a role in supporting college students through this developmental stage. The three studies in this dissertation examine the impact of design thinking pedagogy on creative identity formation in first-year experience programs. The central question of the studies is how students' experience with creativity and problem-solving early in the college experience can encourage design mindset development and support creative identity formation through the intentional integration of design thinking pedagogy. Three pedagogical models of first-year courses using design thinking at three institutions formed the context for the studies. Two methods were employed: qualitative interviews engaged students in meta-cognitive reflection on experiences and outcomes gained; and a survey assessing design thinking mindsets was administered. The model for creative identity formation drawn from the qualitative analysis indicates that students form creative identity through individually-tailored mixing of creative thinking actions and attitudes cultivated by the course experience. Flexibility and symphony are creative thinking actions that engage students intellectually with creative problem-solving, while agency, authenticity, and delight embrace the development of creative identity. Survey analysis demonstrates three clusters of design mindsets that support the impact of creative identity formation in higher education: openness to diverse perspectives and learning orientation share high mean factor scores across all three institutions, underlining first year experience goals; strong correlations between experimentation -- productive failure, optimism, tolerance of ambiguity, and problem framing support key design approaches; and learning orientation, desire to make a difference, and optimism align with guiding theories of emerging adulthood. Results from the studies support the integration of creativity, creative problem-solving, and design thinking in the first-year, to encourage the development of attitudes and mindsets that support the learning and identity-formation experience of college.Item Building an inclusive land management and conservation decision-making system with local stakeholders of Ulaan Taiga Special Protected Area in Mongolia(Montana State University - Bozeman, The Graduate School, 2022) Dovchin, Badamgarav; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Christine Rogers Stanton; Christine Stanton, Suzanne Held, Kristin Ruppel, Paul Lachapelle, Tumursukh Jal, herders user groups and the Community Advisory Board were co-authors of the article, 'Twin ride: integrating WSEK and TEK in Mongolia (literature review)' submitted to the journal 'The other ways of knowing' which is contained within this dissertation.; Christine Stanton, Suzanne Held, Kristin Ruppel, Paul Lachapelle, Tumursukh Jal, herders user groups and the Community Advisory Board were co-authors of the article, 'Community-based participatory research in action: lessons from communities in the Ulaan Taiga Special Protected Area bufferzone communities' submitted to the journal 'Journal of land management and appraisal' which is contained within this dissertation.; Christine Stanton, Suzanne Held, Kristin Ruppel, Paul Lachapelle, Tumursukh Jal, herders user groups and the Community Advisory Board were co-authors of the article, 'Building an inclusive decision-making system for buffer zone land management and conservation of Ulaan Taiga Special Protected Area' submitted to the journal 'The other ways of knowing' which is contained within this dissertation.Environmental degradation and its management are pressing issues worldwide, especially in developing countries. Mongolia is a nomadic culture country with publicly owned land grazed by privately owned herds of domestic animals experiencing intense land degradation (Ministry of Environment and Tourism of Mongolia, 2018). The Eurocentric system (Koobak et al., 2021) Western Science-Based Ecological Knowledge (WSEK) (Studley, 1998) was introduced first by communism, then global North aid programs. Mongolian government fully adopted WSEK methods despite the reality that people of Mongolia still utilize Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) (Berkes, 2012; Jamsranjav et al., 2019). Gradually the disconnect between the stakeholders increased over the last 100 years. Climate change, socioeconomic pressures on publicly owned land, and multiple stakeholders who practice different decision-making systems call for collaborative facilitation and interventions. The purpose of this study is to examine the following two major points: 1. The possibility of addressing the land degradation issues by integrating TEK and WSEK through Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) facilitations in the Darhad Valley, Mongolia (2014-2020). 2. The perceptions of buffer zone communities of Ulaan Taiga Special Protected Area (UTSPA) regarding their ability to manage their land and the ecosystem services it provides. Guidance and participation of locals and advisory board across all steps in the research process (Hallett et al., 2017; Stanton, 2014), and application of a CBPR framework help rebalance the power dynamics among the stakeholders (Coombe et al., 2020a) and bring shared ownership (D'Alonzo, 2010) and trust (P. R. Lachapelle & McCool, 2012) to decision-making. Our team concluded that integrated epistemologies offer added strength and innovation in addressing some of the complex challenges. We found that the 'twin ride' (integration) of WSEK and TEK complement each other (Maweu, 2011). CBPR provides a framework to facilitate collaboration, apply theory to practice in culturally and epistemologically appropriate ways specific to the host community (Stanton et al., 2020), and help overcome various barriers such as loss of trust, institutional differences, and give time to collectively develop shared goals (P. R. Lachapelle et al., 2003). CBPR is a complicated but rewarding, potentially healing process (Stanton, 2014a; Waddell et al., 2020).