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Mountain Scholar

Mountain Scholar is an open access repository service that collects, preserves, and provides access to digitized library collections and other scholarly and creative works from Colorado State University and the University Press of Colorado. It also serves as a dark archive for the Open Textbook Library.

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  • Explore the Colorado State University community’s scholarly output as well as items from the University at large and the CSU Libraries.
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Recent Submissions

  • Item type:Item, Access status: Open Access ,
    Ecological literacy in a context of first-year college students
    (2003) Bruyere, Brett L., author
    This research focused on the knowledge and behavior components of ecological literacy as it pertains to a sample of first-year students at a large land grant university. Specifically, a four-point typology of environmentally responsible behaviors for first-year college students was identified that included dimensions related to consumer, disposal, reuse and conservation activities. The results of the typology were subsequently used to develop attitude and behavior scales to determine the viability of a value-attitude-behavior hierarchy as it relates to environmentally responsible behavior of first-year college students.
  • Item type:Item, Access status: Open Access ,
    Juan Bobo, postcoloniality and Frantz Fanon's theory of violence
    (2007) Rodríguez, Enid Sepúlveda, author; Taylor, Cynthia, advisor; Sheidley, William, committee member; Taylor, Ted, committee member
    In the postcolonial written adaptations of the oral tales and stories about Juan Bobo political violence is generated against the Jibaros by colonial, postcolonial and neocolonial discourses that are still perpetuated in Puerto Rico through unaltered colonial attitudes, political, socioeconomic structures, institutions and literatures that legitimize the negative perception of the Jibaros as the Other. After 1898, redactors of the written tales of Juan Bobo purged the tales of much of their overt anti-colonial, anti-elitist and subversive implications-the undisguised violence, lies, trickery and resistance to oppression that are so evident in the oral tales. With every subsequent version, Juan Bobo dwindles from trickster to mere tonto (“fool/noodlehead”), making Juan Bobo and the Jibaros he represents objects to laugh at or scorn. Colonial ideologies are evident and inscribed in the texts, in the fact that Juan Bobo seems to always be rescued, saved by a privileged and seemingly benevolent whiter, landowning, and more educated character. These redactions constitute a compromise and betrayal of the authentic Jibaro while deepening the split between Puerto Rico’s elite class and the rural peasantry. They play right into colonialism’s hands.
  • Item type:Item, Access status: Open Access ,
    Fire, climate, and forest structure in ponderosa pine forests of the Black Hills
    (2003) Brown, Peter Mark, author; Binkley, Dan, advisor; Laurenroth, William, committee member; Romme, William H., committee member; Smith, Skip, committee member; Sieg, Carolyn Hull, committee member
    A prevailing model for historical conditions in ponderosa pine forests is that frequent surface fires maintained open, low-density forest stands composted primarily of old, large trees. However, this model may not apply uniformly to ponderosa pine forests in the Black Hills of southwestern South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming. Infrequent, extensive stand-replacing fires also may have occurred and apparently resulted in large landscapes of dense, even-aged forest. I examined this alternative model for the Black Hills using fire-sear and tree-age data. Fire chronologies from over 1000 trees collected at over 50 locations span the past four to six centuries. Compared to other ponderosa pine forests in the southwest US or southern Rocky Mountains, these communities burned less frequently. Surface fire frequency varied from an average of every 10 to 13 years at lower elevation sites on the ponderosa pine - northern Great Plains prairie ecotone to as much as 30 to 33 years at higher elevations. Mid-elevation interior sites at Jewel Cave National Monument burned on average every 20 to 26 years. Fires largely ceased in all areas shortly after Euro-American settlement began in the 1870s. Pre-settlement age structure documents very pulsed patterns of tree establishment, with the most abundant cohort occurring from 1770 to 1805. Cohorts established during wet periods in the northern Great Plains. Extended wet conditions likely promoted abundant tree regeneration, fast growth, and longer periods between surface fires that would have permitted more trees to reach canopy status, therefore becoming more “fireproof’ during later surface fires. The absence of fire was likely more critical to structuring the current forest than any potential variation in fire behavior. The late 1700s cohort also followed an extended drought from1756 to 1761, and tree mortality caused by moisture stress may have contributed to stand opening. Patchy crown mortality from fire coupled with other disturbances undoubtedly contributed to stand opening before pulses of climatically driven seedling establishment. Mortality and regeneration were likely completely uncoupled processes and even-aged structure is not definitive evidence of stand-replacing fires in ponderosa pine forests. However, abundant fire scars indicate that surface fires were ubiquitous across the Black Hills landscape. Thus, the prevailing historical model of frequent surface fires promoting and maintaining mostly open forest stands is largely supported by the tree-ring evidence, although the Black Hills had a greater range of variability in fire behavior than ponderosa pine forests of other regions as documented by historic descriptions of the forest at settlement.
  • Item type:Item, Access status: Open Access ,
    Midgut infection barriers (MIB) and midgut escape barriers (MEB) that condition dengue type 2 virus (DEN-2) susceptibility in Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae)
    (2003) Bennett, Kristine Elizabeth, author; Beaty, Barry, advisor; Black, William C., advisor; Mury, Barillas, committee member; Blair, Carol D., committee member; Miller, Dr., committee member
    Vector competence of Aedes aegypti for DEN-2 is a quantitative trait conditioned by several loci throughout the genome, and as such can be highly variable. The objectives of this study were to: 1) detect variation in midgut infection (MIB) and midgut escape barriers (MEB) in natural populations of Ae. aegypti, 2) to use marker assisted selection (MAS) to create lines of Ae. aegypti with specific DEN-2 infection phenotypes and test these for susceptibility to other DEN serotypes and genotypes and 3) to use quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping to identify areas of the genome associated with MEB.
  • Item type:Item, Access status: Open Access ,
    Electrochemiluminescent and electroluminescent devices containing polypyridine transition metal complexes
    (2003) Bloom, Corey J., author; Elliott, C. Michael, advisor
    Polypyridine coordination complexes of transition metal cations, most notably tris(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium(II)-based compounds, “[Ru(LL)3]”, have a number of properties which make them of interest for both fundamental and applied studies. Stability in a number of oxidation states, along with interesting photochemical and photophysical behavior (including excited states that are in some cases relatively long-lived), are among the potentially useful characteristics of these complexes. Extensive research toward understanding the fundamental nature of these materials has brought the field to a point where the relationships between chemical structure and physical behavior of these metal complexes are well understood. As a consequence, it is now possible to predictably control the properties of these complexes through intelligent synthetic design. Using this knowledge, several materials composed of carefully designed and treated polypyridine metal complexes are described here for use in solid state devices exhibiting emission of light driven by electrical energy.