2019 Projects
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Item Open Access Goat value chains development in India: a visual showcase(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Kashyap, Pratyoosh, authorGoat rearing is a major livelihood activity for the resource poor farmers in India who happen to be among the poorest agricultural communities and also largely women. However, the sector faces numerous challenges in the form small scale traditional production methods, lacking input support and inefficient marketing practices. A consistently growing market and massive scope of improvement in production makes developing the value chain an effective tool of combating low farm income and falling rural employment in India. It is also a strong means of women empowerment as the sector largely employs women, though in an informal manner. With the necessary input and extension support, market linkages and developing on community based models, the goat value chain can be strengthened manifold. These photographs are from various states in India and include farmers involved in goat rearing. I had worked with Creative Agri Solutions, an agricultural research organization in Delhi, India. We worked on multiple studies involving value chains development of the goat sector in different states in India as well as at the national level. These photographs are from my visits to these states during the duration of these research projects. They represent an intimate connection between the farmers and the goats and also the different stages in the value chains.Item Open Access If objects could speak, what would they say, and how would they say it?(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Dong Saul, Samuel, authorIs it really strange to think that objects speak? Take a moment to think about this very closely; they might not be speaking to you in a verbal form, but they are surely communicating messages to you in way only you can understand. Could this means they could feel, think, just the way we do? Perhaps. Objects are often part of language, sometimes even before they exist. These objects become social or cultural artifacts well before they are used by living things. Objects "meanings" and "functions" are framed within the constrains of a cultural group. We assign them significance because of what they do, and what they are made off. Shapes, colors, matter, and the combinations of the three build pretty much everything in our observable universe. We just interpret what they might be. If we are made of the same matter, why not think that they might be "alive" too, with feelings and ideas of their own. We will never know what they really want, but we can sure interpret what they are trying to communicate. Contemporary artist make works that engage with viewers about theories of symbolic communication and strategies of analysis. Many of them use text simply for its ability to communicate meaning that are difficult to express in images alone; to convey ideas, descriptions, arguments, and possibly, the interpretation of what the objects someone interacts with, are trying to say.Item Open Access Rising from the dead: who are the monsters and why?(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) O'Shea, Brianna, authorThe purpose of this poster is to compare the role of monsters that initially appeared in 19th-century novels as they are reimagined in a contemporary work. The focus will be Jekyll and Hyde (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Griffin (The Invisible Man), and their reinterpretations in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LEG). This contrast will ask if monsters can change when reinterpreted and what these changes, or lack of, means in terms of societal fears. Through cultural studies research as framed by Jeffery Jerome Cohen and Alexa Wright, monsters embody specific cultural fears (Cohen 4) that then define what constructs acceptable human identity (Wright 1). Within the original texts, Hyde's monstrosity is an embodiment of the loss of racial purity, while Griffin's is a personification of the fear of the unknown and unseen, racial Other. However, changing cultural attitudes towards human traits create a change within the monster. In LEG, Hyde's shift in monstrosity suggests a greater fear of the consumption of violence, while Griffin's lack of change displays a continued fear of the unknown Other acting as a terrorizing force. The implications of this outcome indicate a transformation in how culture perceives purity and violence, yet a lack of change in how the unknown, racial Other is viewed. Monsters are reimagined continuously in contemporary manners, offering a method to examine how society has or has not changed, especially in terms of the present-day treatment of others and the consumption of violence.Item Open Access The Tumblr porn ban: power imbalances of corporate personhood(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Pettis, Ben, authorIn late 2018, Tumblr announced updates to its Community Guidelines that banned all adult content from the platform. The microblogging platform had historically been an online queer space, known for being an online venue for LGBTQ+ individuals and communities to safely meet, communicate, and explore their identities in ways that may not have been possible in physical settings. Because the new adult content policy was such a radical change from this previous meaning of the platform, Tumblr used corporate personhood to announce the updated community guidelines. By presenting its corporate person as if it were any other user, Tumblr created a false sense of equality and downplayed the inherent power imbalance present in the platforms ability to define itself contrary to the desires of its users. Because this corporate person is necessarily more powerful than the users, it challenges the extent to which social network sites are compatible with prior myths of online communication as free, open, and equalizing. This article analyzes the announcement of Tumblrs updated adult content policy to demonstrate how corporate personhood is used to downplay the power imbalance between a platform and its users, most notably the platforms ability to include and exclude certain members from the community.Item Open Access Sustainable development of polymers for a circular plastics economy(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Cywar, Robin, author; Chen, Eugene, authorOver the past five years, the Chen research group has made significant strides in the development of infinitely recyclable plastic materials (polymers). Virgin-quality plastic is regenerated with every chemical recycle, as opposed to the severely compromised materials returned by common mechanical recycling which contribute to the accumulation of plastic waste. This work describes the environmentally friendly, metal-free polymerization and depolymerization of monomer/polymer systems with the "gene" for full chemical recyclability. The sustainable methods developed in this work enabled multi-gram scale preparation of materials and their subsequent characterization. Polymers made with organic catalysts showed advantages such as higher yields, reduced purification requirements, and greater thermal stability than those made with metal catalysts. The strong and tunable plastics showed potential as packaging and membrane materials and are under current evaluation for such applications via two international collaborations.Item Open Access Engaging reality: examining how location-aware mixed reality mobile apps and games influence sense of place for a more engaged citizenry(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Bamesberger, Carla, authorGrowing concerns regarding declining community and civic engagement as a result of increased access to new technologies calls for research seeking to understand ways that purposeful design could have a reverse impact. Location-aware mixed reality mobile apps may be one such technology that, with purposeful design, have the potential to engage users in their communities. Examining these technologies in the context of sense of place theory will provide insights to how these technologies may impact user engagement in their community. Sense of place theory posits that individuals' experiences in a place contribute to their sense of what that place is like and increase their sense of place. An increased sense of place increases a person's likelihood of becoming engaged in that place and of taking an active role in preserving or improving that place. This exploratory study considers the potential of location-aware mixed reality mobile apps to positively impact users' sense of place, making them more likely to engage in and participate in their community. Twelve users (four for each of the three mixed reality apps under consideration) were interviewed about their experience of place while using the app. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed for sense of place topics.Item Open Access Assessing maize crop water stress using an aerodynamic temperature approach(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Costa Filho, Edson, author; Chavez, Jose L., authorThis study evaluates two methods for determining maize crop water stress index (CWSI) using a surface energy balance coupled with an aerodynamic temperature approach. Data were collected on an irrigated maize field, at a research farm located near Greeley, Colorado, USA, in 2018. The irrigation treatment was subsurface drip. Weather data were measured on-site at 3.3 m above ground level. Remote sensed red (RED) and Near infrared (NIR) surface reflectance data were obtained on-site through radiometry measurements done twice a week. Nadir surface temperature was measured using infrared thermometers kept at 1 m above canopy height. Aerodynamic temperature models developed by Chavez et al. (2005) and Costa-Filho (2019) were used to independently estimate CWSI based on the surface energy balance approach. Independent CWSI from measured surface heat fluxes were used as reference for model performance assessment. Results indicated that estimated CWSI based on Costa-Filho (2019) model had mean bias error (MBE) of -0.01 and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.08, while model from Chavez et al. (2005) resulted on MBE of -0.24 and RMSE of 0.27. Both models underestimated CWSI values due to negative values of MBE, but Costa-Filho (2019) model improved CWSI estimation by reducing the magnitude of RMSE in 30 % when compared to CWSI estimated using Chavez et al. (2005) aerodynamic model. Therefore, research results indicate that there is evidence that the CWSI approach based on Costa-Filho (2019) model for aerodynamic temperature seems to improve estimation of maize CWSI for semi-arid conditions.Item Open Access Automated market trends detection with machine learning(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Nguyen, Hieu, authorThe goal of the project is to create an automated process for detecting growing technologies in the IT sphere using open data. The process consists of 3 main steps. First, online media texts are collected. A model is trained to output a list of topics that appears on the media and are relevant our hi-tech interests. Second, Google search volume time-series for each relevant topic is retrieved. These time-series indicate the topic popularity over time.Third, a machine learning model is trained to automatically recognize whether a Google search volume time-series has consistent growth pattern. This process eventually provides a list of topics whose popularity grows consistently over time. The main contribution of this work lies in the vastly reduced amount of time spent on market research that an analyst normally needs. This process can also be used to search for trends in different industries other than hi-tech.Item Open Access Does maternal stress drive offspring dispersal in an asocial mammal?(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Kanaziz, Rachel, author; Huyvaert, Kate, P., author; Wells-Salerno, Caitlin, author; Kepas, Megen, author; Hudson, Spencer, author; French, Susannah, S., author; Aubry, Lise, M., authorStress is a physiological state experienced by all living organisms which can be passed across generations. The purpose of my study is to understand the consequences of maternal nutritional stress on daughter dispersal behavior (i.e. remain philopatric or disperse away from the natal home range). I address this in a population of golden mantled ground squirrels (GMGS), Callospermophilus lateralis, which has been studied for 30 years at Rocky Mountain Biological Research Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado. These hibernating mammals give birth to their young in burrows and offspring suckle from their mothers until emergence. During lactation, the stress hormone corticosterone can be transmitted from mother to offspring where it is eventually uptaken by developing hair follicles. By capturing and collecting hair samples from all mothers and daughters immediately upon emergence, stress data from the hair samples can be paired with philopatric/dispersal behavioral data to determine whether the nutritional stress of mothers determines if daughters remain philopatric or disperse after weaning. Sons tend to disperse regardless of circumstances whereas daughters sometimes remain philopatric to their natal home range. The ultimate goal of my thesis research is to gain insight into the role mother-daughter bonds play in shaping offspring behavior and fitness in light of environmental stress.Item Open Access Graduate Student Showcase, 2019: celebrating research and creativity: program and abstracts(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) CSU Graduate School, publisherThis is the program and abstracts of the 2019 Graduate Student Showcase, held on November 12, 2019 in the Lory Student Center, Colorado State University.