Boise State University

Customers process persuasive verbal messages through analytical or narrative routes. Extant marketing research offers limited findings regarding the relative effectiveness of different communication antecedents to these routes; neither does it sufficiently specify if and how communication modalities (written vs. audio) and product/service type (hedonic vs. utilitarian) moderate their impact. To address this gap, the current article presents the results of a multimethod investigation. With a meta-analysis, Study 1 establishes the differential effects of antecedents on analytical and narrative processing and the moderating roles of both modality and product/service type. Study 2 gathers the expectations of marketing professionals to provide a comparison with the meta-analytic findings, highlighting areas of misalignment and a relevant managerial question pertaining to the effects of blended analytical–narrative messages. Study 3 addresses this relevant question with an experimental approach. The combined results offer novel insights into verbal persuasion and suggest several directions for research.

Plants respond to their environment with both short‐term, within‐generation trait plasticity, and long‐term, between‐generation evolutionary changes. However, the relative magnitude of plant responses to short‐ and long‐term changes in the environment remains poorly understood. Shifts in phenological traits can serve as harbingers for responses to environmental change, and both a plant's current and source (i.e., genotype origin) environment can affect plant phenology via plasticity and local adaptation, respectively. To assess the role of current and source environments in explaining variation in flowering phenology of Bromus tectorum, an invasive annual grass, we conducted a replicated common garden experiment using 92 genotypes collected across western North America. Replicates of each genotype were planted in two densities (low = 100 seeds/1 m², high = 100 seeds/0.04 m²) under two different temperature treatments (low = white gravel; high = black gravel; 2.1°C average difference) in a factorial design, replicated across four common garden locations in Idaho and Wyoming, USA. We tested for the effect of current environment (i.e., density treatment, temperature treatment, and common garden location), source environment (i.e., genotype source climate), and their interaction on each plant's flowering phenology. Flowering timing was strongly influenced by a plant's current environment, with plants that experienced warmer current climates and higher densities flowering earlier than those that experienced cooler current climates and lower densities. Genotypes from hot and dry source climates flowered consistently earlier than those from cool and wet source climates, even after accounting for genotype relatedness, suggesting that this genetically based climate cline is a product of natural selection. We found minimal evidence of interactions between current and source environments or genotype‐by‐environment interactions. Phenology was more sensitive to variation in the current climate than to variation in source climate. These results indicate that cheatgrass phenology reflects high levels of plasticity as well as rapid local adaptation. Both processes likely contribute to its current success as a biological invader and its capacity to respond to future environmental change.

There is limited understanding of how mechanical signals regulate tendon development. The nucleus has emerged as a major regulator of cellular mechanosensation via the linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton (LINC) protein complex. Specific roles of LINC in tenogenesis have not been explored. In this study, we investigate how LINC regulates tendon development by disabling LINC‐mediated mechanosensing via dominant negative (dn) overexpression of the Klarsicht, ANC‐1, and Syne Homology (KASH) domain, which is necessary for LINC to function. We hypothesized that LINC regulates mechanotransduction in developing tendons and that disabling LINC would impact tendon's mechanical properties and structure in a mouse model of dnKASH. We used Achilles tendon (AT) and tail tendon (TT) as representative energy‐storing and positional tendons, respectively. Mechanical testing at postnatal day 10 showed that disabling the LINC complex via dnKASH significantly impacted tendon mechanical properties and cross‐sectional area and that the effects differed between ATs and TTs. Collagen crimp distance was also impacted in dnKASH tendons and was significantly decreased in ATs and increased in TTs. Overall, we show that disruption to the LINC complex specifically impacts tendon mechanics and collagen crimp structure, with unique responses between an energy‐storing and limb‐positioning tendon. This suggests that nuclear mechanotransduction through LINC plays a role in regulating tendon formation during neonatal development.

Integrating public health and public safety strategies is becoming increasingly crucial to maximize positive outcomes for justice-involved people. To date, there is little research exploring the integration of Community Health Workers (CHWs) into community supervision settings. This study utilizes a qualitative approach to explore staff and client (N=12) perspectives on embedding a CHW into a gender-responsive probation supervision approach. Results from the thematic analysis of staff and clients’ responses supported the integration of CHWs into community supervision. Emerging themes were grouped around staff perceptions of CHW’s function and role as “navigators,” creating a natural division of labor within the agency and operating as a safe resource for clients. Clients reported gaining additional personal and professional support through the embedded CHW within their supervision team. Results suggest that integrating public health professionals, particularly those with lived experience, can alleviate workload and decrease burnout while promoting client treatment needs.

Critical to the mechano-regulation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), Linker of the Nucleoskeleton and Cytoskeleton (LINC) complex transduces cytoskeletal forces to the nuclei. The LINC complex contains outer nuclear membrane Nesprin proteins that associate with the cytoskeleton and their inner nuclear membrane couplers, SUN proteins. Here we tested the hypothesis that severing of the LINC complex-mediated cytoskeletal connections may have different effects on chromatin organization and MSC differentiation than those due to ablation of SUN proteins. In cells cultured under adipogenic conditions, interrupting LINC complex function through dominant-negative KASH domain expression (dnKASH) increased adipogesis while heterochromatin H3K27 and H3K9 methylation was unaltered. In contrast, SUN1/2 depletion inhibited adipogenic gene expression and fat droplet formation; as well the anti-adipogenic effect of SUN1/2 depletion was accompanied by increased H3K9me3, which was enriched on Adipoq, silencing this fat locus. We conclude that releasing the nucleus from cytoskeletal constraints via dnKASH accelerates adipogenesis while depletion of SUN1/2 increases heterochromatin accrual on adipogenic genes in a fashion independent of LINC complex function. Therefore, while these two approaches both disable LINC complex functions, their divergent effects on the epigenetic landscape indicate they cannot be used interchangeably to study mechanical regulation of cell differentiation.

The role of externalizing symptoms in men’s experiences of depression, including the link between externalizing symptoms and traditional masculinity ideologies (TMI), has emerged as a key consideration in men’s mental health. Within this context, men’s strategies to manage uncomfortable thoughts and emotions (e.g. restricted emotionality, alexithymia) have been featured. In order to respond to existing gaps in the literature, the purpose of this study was to examine thought suppression as a mediator in the relationship between TMI (self-reliance through mechanical skills, avoidance of femininity, toughness, dominance, restrictive emotionality, importance of sex, negativity towards sexual minorities) and externalizing depressive symptoms (e.g. aggression, alcohol use, risk taking behaviors) as well as explore how each thought suppression strategy differentially mediates the relationship between TMI and externalizing depressive symptoms. Self-report data were used from 785 US men (mean age = 37.78 years-old, SD = 14.05) who completed an online survey. Results indicated that TMI was directly associated with externalizing depressive symptoms, and that thought suppression mediated the relationship between TMI and externalizing depressive symptoms. Additionally, the thought suppression strategies of punishment and worry mediated the relationship between TMI and externalizing depressive symptoms. Given the additional insight into punishment and worry in the role of men’s externalizing depressive symptoms, acceptance-based interventions, such as mindfulness, may provide benefits for men who engage in thought suppression to manage their internal experience.

We develop a new physics‐informed method for multiscale problems by exploiting the separation of scales of the physical phenomena being modeled. In particular, we exploit the difference in the orders of magnitude of physical parameters arising in the model equations and present a new mathematical method that adapts to the mathematical model in question to benefit convergence. The proposed method serves not only as a diagnostic tool but also as a means to construct rapidly convergent dynamic iterations. In developing the method, we, for the first time, formulate and prove principles to identify classes of mathematical models for which such dynamic iterations converge rapidly for systems of arbitrary dimensions. To do so, we investigate the propagation of the errors of the iterations applied to n n ‐dimensional systems of differential equations arising from the linearization of mathematical models involving a separation of scale, both in closed form and in the form of error bounds. We devise a set of new principles, which offer two key benefits: First, they serve as guidelines for constructing rapidly convergent methods, and second, they aid in identifying classes of problems for which such schemes are advantageous. Our theoretical findings and illustrative examples reveal that convergence is model‐dependent, while offering insight into how to design dynamic iterations to benefit convergence, depending on the order of magnitude of parameters inherent to the linearization of a given mathematical model.

Patterns of migratory connectivity are increasingly used to understand and manage threats throughout the annual cycle of migratory species. Strong migratory connectivity refers to when individuals from different populations remain spatially separated across the annual cycle, which may expose populations to unique sets of threats and conditions that cause differential population trends. However, the populations or groups used for species' management are often defined a priori based on expert knowledge and/or management units, which may mask important population segregation and obscure differential population trends and their drivers. We compared three approaches to defining management groups of a declining shorebird, the long‐billed curlew (Numenius americanus), for annual cycle management: by expert‐opinion, according to management flyways, and with unsupervised clustering of satellite tracking data that maximizes the strength of migratory connectivity. Despite the curlews having a continuous breeding range and a pattern of parallel migration, all three approaches identified groups with different population trends, movement behaviours and habitat selection across the annual cycle, suggesting these are meaningful ecological groups. The expert and clustering approaches resulted in similar group structure, strong estimates of migratory connectivity (measured as MC = 0.64 across seasons), movement behaviour and habitat selection; however, the expert approach identified an additional divide between the easternmost grouping, which revealed strongly negative population trends in the group occupying the Chihuahuan desert during the stationary nonbreeding season. In contrast, the flyway delineation resulted in weaker estimates of migratory connectivity, marginal differences in population trends and less between‐group differences in movement behaviour and habitat selection. Synthesis and applications. Using measurements of migratory connectivity in concert with expert opinion can define ecologically distinct groups for wildlife management that differ in the environmental conditions they experience across seasons of the annual cycle, which is a key component for understanding and reversing declines of migratory species.

Context Research software is essential for developing advanced tools and models to solve complex research problems and drive innovation across domains. Therefore, it is essential to ensure its correctness. Software testing plays a vital role in this task. However, testing research software is challenging due to the software’s complexity and to the unique culture of the research software community. Objective Building on previous research, this study provides an in-depth investigation of testing practices in research software, focusing on test case design, challenges with expected outputs, use of quality metrics, execution methods, tools, and desired tool features. Additionally, we explore whether demographic factors influence testing processes. Method We survey research software developers to understand how they design test cases, handle output challenges, use metrics, execute tests, and select tools. Results Research software testing varies widely. The primary challenges are test case design, evaluating test quality, and evaluating the correctness of test outputs. Overall, research software developers are not familiar with existing testing tools and have a need for new tools to support their specific needs. Conclusion Allocating human resources to testing and providing developers with knowledge about effective testing techniques are important steps toward improving the testing process of research software. While many industrial testing tools exist, they are inadequate for testing research software due to its complexity, specialized algorithms, continuous updates, and need for flexible, custom testing approaches. Access to a standard set of testing tools that address these special characteristics will increase level of testing in research software development and reduce the overhead of distributing knowledge about software testing.

Even though it is not well characterized how much humans can sense the geomagnetic field (GMF), numerous magnetosensitive animals can detect GMF broadly as a sensory cue, when a spatial decision-making is needed for orientation or migration. In an article of recent series of studies, we showed that the empirical probabilities of stone selections in Go game were significantly different from the theoretical probability. In this study, we assessed the implication of the GMF in modulating subconscious non-spatial decision-making in human subjects and the underlying mechanism with exploiting the zero-sum binary stone selection of Go game as a proof-of-principle. In a laboratory setting, the experimental probability in a decision-making was significantly hampered by the cancelation of the ambient GMF. Moreover, the attenuation of decision-making was confirmed by a specific range of magnetic resonance radiofrequency. In numerous stone selection games among amateur Go players in the artificial magnetic field setting, the analyses of stone selection rate by trials and steps for decision-making pinpointed the subconscious stone selection as a primary modulating target in the binary decision-making. Our findings may provide unique insights into the impact of sensing GMF in probabilistic decision-making in which theoretical probability is manifested into empirical probability through a magnetic field resonance-dependent mechanism.

Implementations of neurons, delays, and synapse circuits are presented with simulations. These neural elements are used to create two small spiking neural networks, the Rate-Window and Order-Biased clusters, which are capable of detecting simple two-spike spatiotemporal patterns. A simple pattern detecting network (SPDN) is created by combining the Rate-Window and Order-Biased clusters, where clusters are small spiking neural networks, and its simple pattern detection ability is demonstrated in simulation. The SPDN is used to implement a complex pattern detecting network (CPDN) and its complex pattern detection ability is demonstrated in simulation. Methods for generating arbitrary spatiotemporal patterns are presented. The CPDN and spatiotemporal pattern generation methods are then used to implement a novel spatiotemporal computing paradigm based on detecting and responding to spatiotemporal symbols. A simulation of a spatiotemporal half adder is presented to demonstrate the computing paradigm.

The self‐potential (SP) method has been used in hydrological sciences to monitor many hydrologic processes thanks to the electrokinetic coupling between water flow and streaming current in geological materials. Despite many useful applications, quantitative interpretations are still rare, in particular for unsaturated soils where the water fluxes are of orders lower than that in saturated conditions. In this study, we used laboratory soil column tests to simulate vadose zone hydrologic processes (drainage, evaporation, and transpiration) and to generate SP data in low water flow conditions. The measured water fluxes and SP signals in different hydrologic stages of the tests are used to study if electrokinetic coupling is still the dominant mechanism for the SP signals in unsaturated, low‐flow conditions. Theoretical models of electrokinetic and electrodiffusion couplings are also used to guide the analysis. It is shown that the SP signals measured during soil evaporation and plant transpiration in this soil column test were not only caused by unsaturated water flows in the soil column through electrokinetic coupling. Instead, they are likely related to the ion concentration gradient in the soil column, which creates an electrical current of a diffusive nature. The ion concentration gradient is likely related to the different reaction rates of mineral–water interactions in saturated and unsaturated soils. This study, therefore, highlighted the importance of considering the electrodiffusion coupling in interpreting the measured SP signals in vadose zone hydrology.

Airborne lidar is a powerful tool used by water resource managers to map snow depth and aid in producing spatially distributed snow water equivalent (SWE) when combined with modeled density. However, limited research so far has focused on retrieving optical snow properties from lidar. Optical snow surface properties directly impact albedo, which has a major control on snowmelt timing, which is especially useful for water management applications. Airborne lidar instruments typically emit energy at a wavelength of 1,064 nm, which can be informative in mapping optical snow surface properties since grain size modulates reflectance at this wavelength. In this paper we present and validate an approach using airborne lidar for estimating snow reflectance and optical grain size at high spatial resolution. We utilize three lidar flights over the Boise National Forest, United States, during a winter season from December 2022 to March 2023. We discuss sensitivities to beam incidence angles, compare results to in situ measurements snow grain size, and perform spatial analyses to ensure reflectance and optical grain size varies across space and time as anticipated. Modeled optical grain size from lidar performed well (Root mean squared difference = 49 μm; percent mean absolute difference = 31%; n = 28), suggesting that aerial lidar surveys can be useful in mapping snow reflectance and optical grain size for dry snow, and may support development of other remote sensing technologies and aid water resources management.

Soil organic carbon (‘SOC’) in drylands comprises nearly a third of the global SOC pool and has relatively rapid turnover and thus is a key driver of variability in the global carbon cycle. SOC is also a sensitive indicator of longer-term directional change and disturbance-responses of ecosystem C storage. Biome-scale disruption of the dryland carbon cycle by exotic annual grass invasions (mainly Bromus tectorum, ‘Cheatgrass’) threatens carbon storage and corresponding benefits to soil hydrology and nutrient retention. Past studies on cheatgrass impacts mainly focused on total C, and of the few that evaluated SOC, none compared the very different fractions of SOC, such as relatively unstable particulate organic carbon (POC) or relatively stable, mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC). We measured SOC and its POC and MAOC constituents in the surface soils of sites that had sagebrush canopies but differed in whether their understories had been invaded by cheatgrass or not, in both warm and relatively colder ecoregions of the western USA. MAOC stocks were 36.1% less in the 0–10 cm depth and 46.1% less in the 10–20 cm depth in the cheatgrass-invaded stands compared to the uninvaded stands of the warmer Colorado Plateau, but not in the cooler and more carbon-rich Wyoming Basin ecoregion. In plots where cheatgrass increased SOC, it was via unstable POC. These findings indicate that cheatgrass effects on the distribution of soil carbon among POC and MAOC fractions may vary among ecoregions, and that cheatgrass can reduce forms of carbon that are otherwise considered stable and ‘secure’, i.e. sequestered.

A new gem‐quality zircon reference material, S513, was developed for in situ microbeam U‐Th‐Pb, (U‐Th)/He geochronology and Hf‐O isotope measurement. The well‐cut gem‐quality zircon weighed 51.3 carats. Its U, Th, Pb and Hf mass fractions were 924 ± 64.6 μg g ⁻¹ (2 s ), 89.6 ± 3.92 μg g ⁻¹ (2 s ), 119 ± 5.20 μg g ⁻¹ (2 s ) and 8259 ± 244 μg g ⁻¹ (2 s ), respectively. Imaging results from LA‐ICP‐ToF‐MS analysis showed homogeneous distribution of elements in S513. The Th‐corrected weighted mean ²⁰⁶ Pb/ ²³⁸ U, ²⁰⁷ Pb/ ²³⁵ U and ²⁰⁷ Pb/ ²⁰⁶ Pb ratios of S513 zircon from eight ID‐TIMS analyses are 0.090955 ± 0.000019 (2 s , MSWD = 0.22, n = 8), 0.73873 ± 0.00023 (2 s , MSWD = 0.19, n = 8) and 0.058934 ± 0.000008 (2 s , MSWD = 0.35, n = 8), respectively. The Th‐corrected weighted mean ²⁰⁶ Pb/ ²³⁸ U age obtained from chemical abrasion‐isotope dilution‐thermal ionisation mass spectrometry is 561.18 ± 0.63 Ma ( n = 8, 95% conf., MSWD = 0.9), which is recommended as the best age estimate of S513. The weighted mean ²⁰⁶ Pb/ ²³⁸ U ages obtained from in situ microbeam analysis (i.e., LA‐ICP‐MS and SIMS) were 560.8 ± 5.8/10.2 Ma (2 s , n = 260) and 562.4 ± 7.2/13.4 Ma (2 s , n = 198). The measured weighted mean ²⁰⁸ Pb/ ²³² Th age of S513 from LA analyses was 561.3 ± 3.3/11.7 Ma (2 s , n = 86). The U‐Pb and Th‐Pb ages of S513 obtained with in situ methods showed good agreement with the CA‐ID‐TIMS results, respectively. The obtained (U‐Th)/He age of S513 from thirty‐seven aliquots analysed with U‐Th isotope dilution method was 420.3 ± 7.6 Ma (2 s , MSWD = 0.72). The recommended reference value of Hf isotope ratio was 0.281606 ± 0.000010 (2 s , MSWD = 1.4, n = 12) according to the mean ¹⁷⁶ Hf/ ¹⁷⁷ Hf ratio acquired with solution MC‐ICP‐MS analysis. All the LA analyses yielded a mean ¹⁷⁶ Hf/ ¹⁷⁷ Hf ratio of 0.281605 ± 0.000008 (2 s , MSWD = 0.53, n = 310), which was consistent with the reference value. Laser fluorination analyses yielded mean δ ¹⁸ O values of S513 were 11.71 ± 0.11‰ (2 s , MSWD = 0.25, n = 5). The results obtained with multiple analytical methods show that zircon S513 is homogeneous to 8% (1 s ) or better for contents of Y, Nb, Ce, Gd, heavy REE, Ta, U, Th, Pb and Hf. Additionally, the homogeneity is observed at 0.12‰ (2 s ) for U‐Pb ages, 1.8% (2 s ) for (U‐Th)/He ages, 0.0036% (2 s ) for Hf isotopes, and 0.11‰ (2 s ) for O isotope ratios. Zircon S513 is proposed as a new potential primary calibration or quality control reference material for microbeam U‐Th‐Pb geochronology and Hf‐O isotope measurement.

Internationally, there has been a decline in the use of juvenile legal facilities (Puzzanchera et al., 2022). Yet, it is well documented that the process of reentering the community following placement in these settings presents numerous challenges for young people. Resilience-focused research offers a critical framework for prevention and intervention efforts to promote positive youth development; however, limited attention is given to the resilience of young people reentering communities from carceral and residential facilities. Addressing this gap in empirical knowledge requires an understanding of existing research on youth reentry and resilience. This scoping review identified peer-reviewed research from the past 20 years that focuses on the resilience of young people reentering from juvenile legal facilities, with a special interest in the subpopulations and identity groups represented and underrepresented in this research area. We identified, synthesized, and appraised 75 international and multidisciplinary studies on resilience experienced by youth who reenter from juvenile legal facility settings. Utilizing the Resilience Portfolio Model (Grych et al., 2015), we classified resilience processes relevant to youth reentry, including: (a) regulatory processes such as coping strategies and motivation; (b) meaning-making strengths such as sense of self, cultural identity, and future orientation; and (c) interpersonal relationships and social ecology, such as educational and vocational support. The utility of this scoping review includes identifying opportunities for future study on the role of resilience for system-involved young people, as well as a translational discussion of implications for existing and future practice, policy, and research in juvenile and criminal legal systems.

Epitaxial combination of transition metal nitrides and group III-nitrides holds significant potential for novel device architectures, given their wide array of properties and similar lattice constants. However, the mixture of hexagonal and cubic crystals limits structural quality and has stymied development. This work will discuss the molecular beam epitaxy synthesis of metastable cubic GaN on 3C-SiC templates and its integration with cubic ZrN and NbN superconductors in single and multilayer heterostructures. The fully cubic nature of GaN and the epitaxial nature of all layers are confirmed via in situ and ex situ techniques. The electrical transport properties of transition metal nitrides on cubic GaN (001) are compared to those grown directly on 3C-SiC (001) and c-plane hexagonal GaN templates. The determination of a similar growth window for cubic wide-bandgap and superconducting metal nitrides creates a platform for new epitaxial device architectures and potential applications in metamaterials, quantum information science, and condensed matter physics.