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: Colorado River Allocation in the Era of Climate Change: GIS as a Tool for Water Conservation; Climate change has many implications for the Colorado River and the millions of people the lifeline supports. Allocation and water management in the arid west seems to be increasingly complex, as climate change, coupled with population growth, add another perplexing aspect for water managers. Average predictions for Colorado River flows range anywhere between a 6%-20% decrease by 2050, despite the water stored in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which are already are far below average historic levels. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and remote sensing technologies have been evolving since the 1970s and are serving as vital tools for sharing, visualizing, analyzing, and manipulating spatial data. GIS technology create excellent mechanisms for water managers, scientists, politicians, and the public interests groups with consistent information on temperature data, precipitation, snowpack, soil types, land use and a multitude of other factors, which determine the health and survival of the river. GIS is a critical device that needs to be utilized for conservation of vital water resources in the Colorado River Basin.

: Colorado River Basin Allocation in the Era of Climate Change: The Role of GIS for Water Conservation Management; Climate change has many implications for the Colorado River and the millions of people the lifeline supports. Allocation and water management in the arid west seems to be increasingly complex, as climate change, coupled with population growth, add another perplexing aspect for water managers. Average predictions for Colorado River flows range anywhere between a 6%-20% decrease by 2050, despite the water stored in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which are already are far below average historic levels. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and remote sensing technologies have been evolving since the 1970s and are serving as vital tools for sharing, visualizing, analyzing, and manipulating spatial data. GIS technology create excellent mechanisms for water managers, scientists, politicians, and the public interests groups with consistent information on temperature data, precipitation, snowpack, soil types, land use and a multitude of other factors, which determine the health and survival of the river. GIS is a critical device that needs to be utilized for conservation of vital water resources in the Colorado River Basin.

: Colorado's Natural Gas Exploration & Water Contamination; Colorado has a long history of natural gas exploration. The style and amount of exploration have changed over time. New, more efficient processes for extracting natural gas have been developed. These new technologies have increased the amount of gas exploration in Colorado. This increase has coincided with economic gains to both the state, and the natural gas industry. These economic gains have come at the cost of contaminating state water supplies. This contamination caught the eye of the national government, forcing the development of federal regulation, as well as the formation of a state regulatory agency. These regulations and regulators were set up to ensure that natural gas exploration was performed in a safe manner. There are many rules in place to protect water resources from gas exploration processes. Unfortunately, the gas industry has been exempted from key sections of the country's major water protection laws. This, coupled with a meager enforcement staff at both the state and federal levels, has led to countless water contamination incidents in Colorado. This contamination results in harm to human health and reduces the amount of clean water in an arid state. The main issues regarding gas exploration and water contamination that must be addressed are the exemptions from federal laws, and the lack of enforcement at both the state and federal levels. Forcing the natural gas industry to adhere to U.S. water protection laws by amending the Energy Policy Act, Clean Water Act, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act are key steps towards protecting water resources. Once the gas industry is subject to these laws, the enforcement staff for the state and federal levels must be increased. This will ensure that Colorado's water is protected while natural gas exploration is occurring.

: Colorful World: What Do Picasso, Stage Lights and Color Have in Common?; The theater needs to be a place to be creative and to allow the audience to enjoy the time they spend in shows. By connecting subconsciously through color this process can be made easier. Picasso's use of color provides a deeper sense of emotional interaction with the paintings. Applying this understanding to theater lighting, we can subconsciously provide a deeper connection to the action and characters on stage.

: Communication between Virus and Mouse: Dynamic Modeling of Deer Mouse Immune Response to Sin Nombre Virus using Peircean Semiotics; Biological systems are dynamic, but predominant reductionist approaches in biology model these systems with little context of other related systems. Peircean semiotics is a methodology that models a pathway in reference to other levels of organization. In this study, immune response of deer mice infected with Sin Nombre Virus (SNV) is modeled using Peircean semiotics. Results suggest the immune systems of deer mice adopt the virus as a part of self, ultimately saving the mice from the inappropriately excessive inflammatory response (Hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome, HCPS) that kills humans infected with SNV. This work supports Peircean semiotics as a biological methodology when applied to cellular mechanisms and suggests an immunosuppressive vaccine may be effective for preventing HCPS in humans.

: Comparing Burnout Between Therapeutic and Developmental Outdoor Educators; During the employment season, many therapeutic and developmental field staff experience symptoms of burnout due to the demanding expectations of extensive work hours in remote wilderness areas, responsible for the safety and well-being of their clients. In addition to these challenges, instructors employed in wilderness therapy must also cope with the duties of working with their students on emotional issues. The purpose of this research was to compare burnout levels between therapeutic and developmental outdoor education professionals. The Maslach Burnout Inventory - Educators Survey (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1986), categorizes burnout into three subscales (feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment). The hypothesis of this study stated that wilderness therapy instructors experience higher levels of burnout than developmental instructors. Overall, 37 field staff from two outdoor programs volunteered to participate in the survey. Eighteen instructors came from wilderness therapy and the remaining 19 from a developmental program. Scores of each survey were calculated, and the means were compared between the two groups. Results revealed significance (p = 0.036) in the depersonalization subscale of burnout, but not in the emotional exhaustion (p = 0.085) or personal accomplishment (p = 0.490) subscales. The hypothesis of this study was rejected due to the insignificance in two of the subscales. Although the hypothesis was rejected, the following research indicates that, in relation to interaction with patients, wilderness therapy instructors do experience higher levels of stress and burnout than developmental instructors.

: Comparing Heirloom Plants to GMOs: The Future of Drought Tolerant Agriculture in the American Southwest; In comparing the viability of drought tolerant genetically modified crops to drought tolerant heirloom crops, this paper considers plant yield under the stress of drought, and also considers the nutritional benefits, ecological effects, and the possible negative health effects of these food sources. Climate change will seriously affect the Southwest, and farmers are becoming interested in crops that will be able to deal with this stress. Agricultural companies are also trying to adapt to these conditions by creating drought tolerant GMO plants. Monsanto, an agricultural giant, is testing one of these GMO varieties (a corn named "˜Droughtgard') for the first time this coming summer. Many heirloom varieties of crops are alternatives to these GMO plants because of their drought tolerant qualities. The heirloom varieties that are especially drought tolerant have been cultivated for centuries in places such as the Sonora desert. One Sonoran example, Tohono O'odham flour corn, has been grown by the O'odham tribe on no more water than the occasional flash flood. Droughtgard corn, on the other hand, has not proved its worth under drought conditions, and according to Monsanto, Droughtgard "isn't a product that we're expecting to grow in the desert." GMO plant varieties have not undergone extensive testing for their healthfulness, but the testing that has been done shows uncertainty in how good these products are for humans. There is evidence from testing on mice and rats that GMO products could cause malfunction of the liver and kidneys, as well as create an increase in allergens. The environmental effects of these products are also a concern for many scientists, who foresee possible ecological impacts from these products if they contaminate wild lands. GMOs are also designed to do better in conventional systems of agriculture, which produces less nutritious food with more risk of being contaminated with nitrates and chemical residues. Heirloom plants, however, are some of the most nutritious varieties, and do especially well in organic systems of agriculture. Heirloom plants have stood the test of time, and provide much more nutritious food than GMOs while doing just as well, if not better in many cases, under the stress of drought.

: Comparing Wavelet Techniques for Content-Based Image Retrieval; The volume of images in any given digital database is rapidly increasing as technology becomes cheaper, more accessible, and more relied upon. With a large amount of images to sift through, the value of meaningful and efficient image searches increases greatly. Wavelets are a useful tool for image processing, and specifically for the purpose of image query systems. An image query system attempts to take a given image and return similar images from the data base. This talk considers three approaches of creating an image query system. By using a discrete wavelet transform the texture as well as spatial features of an image can be analyzed. This allows us to find significant features of a specified image which then can be compared to those of the images within the database. From this technique we are able to search a given database of images to produce a set of images that are similar to a queried image. A comparison of the presented methods illustrate the value of wavelets for content-based image retrieval.

: Comparing the Life Cycle of Consumer Shopping Bags; One of the symbolic steps of the environmental movement has been the banning of the plastic bag while promoting the use of another symbol of the environmental crusade, the reusable bag. Policy makers both locally and nationally feel that plastic bag bans and taxes are a step in the right direction and if accepted will pave the way for further environmental regulations. However, the banning and promotion of certain bags can create confusion and stress on the environmentally-conscious consumer. This research seeks to inform the environmentally- conscious consumer about the life cycles of shopping bags. To allow the consumer to make an informed decision, the life cycles of a conventional plastic bag, paper bag and the symbolic "Go Green" reusable bag were researched from cradle to grave. This includes the use of resources in the production process, length of use of the bag, recycling methods, landfill statistics and the total carbon foot print associated with each bag type. The life cycle information can then be used by the informed voter in regards to plastic bag bans and taxes. By comparing the three major bag types it becomes clear that each has its own environmental problems. Ultimately, what determines the environmental impact of any bag type is the amount of resources used in the production process. The best way to reduce this environmental impact is to reuse a bag as many times as possible no matter what type. This research shows that based on production alone a conventional plastic bag requires the least amount of resources and energy to produce, while paper and reusable bags require more. On the flip side, a plastic bag can take up to a thousand years to break down in the environment, which greatly increases its potential to create environmental harm. Based on the life cycles and total carbon footprints of each bag type there is little rationale in limiting their usage due to the threat of climate change. When the carbon footprints of consumer bags are compared to the carbon footprints of other current practices the bags rank trivial, meaning the carbon footprint of consumer shopping bags is low. Positive or negative this symbolic movement puts environmental issues on the public's radar and allows for other issues to gain attention.

: Computational Complexity of Problems With Digraphs and Finite Topological Spaces; Consider a finite topological space X. By using the relationship between digraphs and finite topological spaces, a corresponding digraph, GX can be found. Then, completing the adjacency matrix for GX can be used to determine the complexity class (defined via Turing machines) of problems involving GX, and therefore of X as well. This talk will examine the complexity classes of problems in deciding whether spaces are self-complementary finite topological spaces, deformation retracts, and if a finite topological space is a T0-space.

: Concussion Reporting in NCAA Division I-III Collegiate Athletes; The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of misreporting of concussion symptoms of NCAA Division I-III student-athletes and to learn why and how they were able to falsify information on baseline or follow-up concussion testing. We gathered contact information from all NCAA Division I-III schools targeting those with contact sports. We split the United States into 7 regions and randomly selected 15 schools from each NCAA level within each region. Coaches from each school were then contacted and asked to forward the survey to the student-athletes on his/her team. Data was received from 817 athletes. The first hypothesis of this study stated that athletes have figured out ways to falsify and misreport results on a baseline and/or follow up concussion testing. Several questions in our survey asked about different ways to falsify information on concussion testing. Results included 76 out of 317 (24%) hid their concussion from medical staff, 47 out of 286 (16%) said they would hide their symptoms from staff, 47 out of 187 (25%) admitted hiding symptoms when returning to play, 34 out of 258 (13%) confessed they would alter results to return to play quicker and 37 out of 314 (12%) admitted that if they sustained another concussion they would hide their symptoms from sports medicine staff. Chi2 results did not support this hypothesis. Our second hypothesis was Division I athletes are more likely not to report concussion symptoms than Division II or III. In the survey, two questions were linked to this hypothesis: "Have you been diagnosed with a concussion?" and "Have you sustained a concussion but did not report it to anyone?" The results showed no significant differences; 83 out of 189 (44%) Division I athletes, 104 out of 305 (34%) Division II athletes and 139 out of 312 (44%) Division III athletes reported having had a diagnosed concussion. 78 out of 189 (41%) Division I athletes, 105 out of 305 (34%) Division II athletes, and 132 out of 312 (42%) Division III athletes stated they had sustained non-reported concussion during their collegiate career. Although both hypotheses were rejected, data collected from the survey showed that non-reporting and lying about concussion symptoms is occurring in the NCAA. Further studies of a larger population of NCAA athletes would help medical providers better understand ways in which concussion testing and diagnoses can be improved to protect patients.

: Confirming Exoplanets Using the Fort Lewis Observatory; The transit method was used to detect exoplanets at the Fort Lewis Observatory. Exoplanets are planets that orbit other stars. Using the telescope at the Fort Lewis College Observatory, eight transits were captured. The change in magnitude was determined for all eight transit stars and the transit duration was determined for six of the stars. The change in magnitude recorded by the Fort Lewis telescope was compared to the change in magnitude reported on the Exoplanet Transit Database (ETD). All eight transits had an average difference from the ETD of within 0.004 magnitude or 21%. Through this data analysis and comparison it was determined that the telescope at the Fort Lewis Observatory is capable of observing exoplanet transits having a change in magnitude of as small as 0.0087.

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