The purpose of the study was to assess students' water consumption in the Gallagher Business Building to determine if designated water bottle filling stations will increase reusable water containers. Data was collected to determine the number of disposable water bottles purchased and the current usage of refillable water bottles.

A Kress Revolving Loan Fund application was submitted to fund the installation of two water bottle refilling stations. To date the grant was awarded and installation of the filling stations is being arranged. After installation data on student usage of refillable water bottles will be collected to test the hypothesis that increased convenience for filling water bottles will increase their usage.

Cash and in-kind transfers play an important role in alleviating poverty in developing countries. Compared to in-kind transfers, cash transfers give recipients greater flexibility in how they spend the money. However, there are concerns that the recipients may use the cash transfers to purchase unnecessary goods such as alcohol and tobacco. This raises the question whether unconditional cash transfers are effective tools to alleviate poverty. Previous literature uncovers that cash transfers given in developing countries are used mostly for food consumption, which can increase children's nutrition and well-being. In Indonesia, the government initiated an unconditional cash transfer program called Bantuan Langsung Tunai (BLT) through which transfers were first made in October 2005 followed by a second round in 2008. The program targeted about 19.1 million households to receive Rp 100.000,00 (approximately $10) a month to help cope with an increase in gas prices. Literature regarding BLT's effect on health is limited. A quantitative study confirming its effects on children's nutrition has not been conducted yet. Thus, this research focuses on evaluating three types of effects on health: food consumption, medical consumption, and children's nutrition. I use data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), a longitudinal survey that has tracked over 7000 households across the country since 1993, to conduct my analysis using a propensity score methodology. Since the targeting of BLT recipients was based on a number of characteristics that the government considered as good identifiers of economic well-being, randomness was not implemented in the program. In this research, I create a control and treatment group from the data using the propensity scores to incorporate randomness. I estimate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) on food and medical consumption, as well as children's BMI z-score for each age group to evaluate the program's impact on nutrition.

Developing computer simulations often requires collaboration between computer scientists and individuals from other disciplines. The complex program implementations make effectively communicating the methods and physics used in the simulation challenging. In addition, maintaining concurrency between the code also becomes difficult due to its dynamic nature. The solution to this problem is the use of dynamic documentation tools, such as Sphinx. Such tools allow programmers to create a docstring, or a specific type of comment, that can be parsed and used to create a new document. HTML documents, for example, are commonly created using documentation tools. This approach to documentation allows these simulations to be developed more effectively as the documents can be updated frequently with relative ease.

When the economy is at its lowest point, library use is at its highest. This is especially true of community oriented rural towns, where libraries preserve community history, organize community programs, and provide internet access. However, an economic downturn is also when library funding from the state is in danger of being cut from smaller communities. Drawing from a survey that I sent to the Association of Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) List Serve, as well as from ARSL members’ budget reports, my paper examines how rural libraries are currently supplementing their budgets. In the survey, I asked about grants, library groups, fundraising, and community use. The majority of the libraries that responded indicated that their outside funding comes mostly from grants, selling old library books, and groups that support the library. The purpose of my paper is to examine how successful these programs are, and to identify the most effective methods for supplementing library budgets. This paper encourages librarians, working in small rural libraries, to embrace unconventional ways of fundraising in order to better fund their many uses.

Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S with currently over 5 million American’s diagnosed. Among the top ten causes of death in the U.S., it is the only disease that cannot be prevented, cured, or even slowed. In this presentation I will begin by discussing the basics of Alzheimer’s disease: cause, diagnosis, and treatment. Although there is much research going on, even on our own campus to try to solve this mystery disease, there are over 21,000 people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease right now in Montana that will never find a way out of their confusion. The second half of my presentation will discuss behavioral strategies that I have obtained from literature on behavioral studies, discussions of behaviors in various caregiver support groups, and in online blogs for Alzheimer’s caregivers. In the last year I have implemented and found these strategies to be successful in decreasing anxiety and increasing quality of life while working at a facility that specializes in memory care. I will highlight on key times of the day that I have found are common sources of stress for people with Alzheimer’s including meal times, bathing, and everyday downtime. By implementing verbal and physical cues for behavior, I have seen anxiety and confusion decrease for the people I serve. Through small moments of recognition, calming activities, and social interactions I believe that we can provide a better day for a person living with Alzheimer’s disease.

“The angry Indian, the pitiful Indian, Indians as the victims... It’s hard to overcome,” said Bill Yellow Robe, an award-winning playwright and Assiniboine from Northeast Montana. These stereotypes of Native Americans are perpetuated by mainstream media. This research audio story explores the lives of those touched by inaccurate representation in the media. Perspectives come from frustrated Native Americans like Bill Yellow Robe, Native journalists devoted to portraying an accurate picture of Native communities, and student journalists learning how to bridge this cultural gap. This stereotyping stems from mainstream media’s coverage of reservations. The news often only focuses on tragedies that occur, painting an unrepresentative picture of Native communities. Stories of success and overcoming hardship do not often find their way into off-reservation newspapers. Native media outlets are vastly different from their mainstream counterparts because of their presentation of Native voices and perspectives largely absent from mainstream media newsrooms. There are efforts to close the gap between Natives and non-Natives in journalism. These efforts include a class at the University of Montana dedicated to covering Native News issues, teaching young journalists to report on reservations respectfully and accurately. On a national scale, larger media outlets are beginning to see the need for diversity in their newsrooms, and searching for ways to collaborate with Native media outlets. This story brings light to Native American communities in the media by offering a series of interviews with Native American journalists and non-Native newspaper editors around Montana, investigations into past news articles dealing with Native issues, and explores nationwide initiatives to bring Native and non-Natives together to reach a greater cultural understanding. But there’s still a long way to go to overcome this seemingly subtle form of racism.