Rural Kentucky’s cultural and geographical landscapes in the early 1990s serve as the foundation for Blackwater Wolf, a novel that examines the intersections of place, identity, and love. The story follows two young women as they navigate a same-sex relationship in a conservative community, where societal pressures and personal doubts ultimately strain their connection. Separated by circumstance and time, they reunite seventeen years later when the mysterious disappearance of a local child brings them back together. The child’s claim that a monster inhabits the shadow of Black Mountain becomes both a literal mystery and a metaphorical lens through which the protagonists—and the reader—explore memory, trauma, reconciliation, and the boundaries of monstrosity. By blurring the line between reality and the uncanny, Blackwater Wolf seeks to interrogate the ways deeply rooted cultural myths shape personal identity while challenging readers to reconsider what it means to belong, to heal, and to transform in the face of fear and uncertainty.

The relationship between the Russian State and Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) during Putin’s regime has been characterized as mutually beneficial. The most influential figure in the contemporary ROC is Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’, who has worked with Putin to give Russia’s current nation-building project, Russkiĭ Mir ‘Russian World,’ a religious foundation. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine exists within this project, which Kirill has sought to sacralize in his sermons. In this thesis, Barton utilizes discourse analysis to examine how Kirill’s sermons justify Russian imperialism while also projecting a vision of the ROC within the national project. Specifically, Barton identifies how Kirill employs grammatical and prosodic resources to invoke an Orthodox cosmological space-time, or “chronotope,” i.e. a linguistically encoded rendering of space and time that endows figures with moral characteristics. In his sermons Kirill invokes what Barton terms the Salvation chronotope, a space-time modeled after St. John Climacus’ The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Through close analysis of one sermon, she demonstrates how Kirill constructs the Salvation chronotope in the image of the Ladder and depicts the movement of congregants, the nation, and Russian military within its metaphysical landscape. She argues that in doing so Kirill frames Russia's full-scale invasion as the nation's “historical fate," necessary to keep it oriented on the path to salvation. Alongside this Barton analyzes a speech register she dubs “God-speak,” a performance style marked by liturgical tonality and paeonic meter. She demonstrates that Kirill employs God-speak to connect historical Russian conflicts with the Russo-Ukrainian War and prophesize the divine intervention of an Orthodox figure on Russia’s behalf. She concludes that the Salvation chronotope is one method by which Kirill aligns himself with Putin while stepping beyond State rhetoric, asserting the importance of Orthodoxy in ensuring Russia’s existential fate after the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Transportation of diesel fuel used to produce electricity for Alaska remote communities is highly expensive. Thus, people living in those remote areas pay a high rate for electric energy compared to the national average cost. The availability of renewable energy resources may help to minimize these high expenses. As many rural Alaskans live near rivers, hydrokinetic energy could be used as a renewable source of electric power. This renewable resource, if successfully harvested, has immense potential to help power Alaska remote communities and significantly reduce electric energy costs. This project aims to investigate the implementation of an energy conversion system to harvest riverine power by utilization of a novel hydrokinetic energy harvesting system through field testing and modelling. An electrical power generator, specifically a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG), was selected to be used for mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion within a low-speed range. Unregulated electric power produced by the generator was rectified and filtered to produce smooth DC power. A maximum power point tracking (MPPT) current controller was implemented in the Simulink® environment to demonstrate how to extract the maximum power available at the generator output under different water velocities and load conditions.

Context. Squirrel species in Alaska generally lack thorough conservation management plans, while all species are actively hunted with no bag limits, closed seasons, or any other restrictions, and the current ‘management’ is based on ambiguous hand-drawn distribution maps. This indicates a laissez-faire approach to Alaskan squirrel conservation management. Aims. Here, we attempt to improve this current situation by assessing the effectiveness of ensemble machine-learning prediction models as proposed add-ons to the traditional components of conservation management plans toward a more state-of-the-art approach to species conservation. Methods. We combined the Machine Learning algorithms TreeNet, CART, Random Forest, and Maxent with over 200 environmental and socio-economic predictors for the ensemble Super Species Distribution Models. These ensemble models were carried out for all squirrel species individually occurring in Alaska and a 600 km buffer area and two assemblage models combined: a) all species currently occurring only in Alaska and b) all species occurring in Alaska and the 600km buffer area. Key results. Most predicted distribution hotspots for squirrels in Alaska and the 600 km buffer area were observed near road and river systems (close to human activities) and the last glacial maximum refugia. Conclusions & Implications. Applying a machine learning ensemble distribution modeling framework to conservation management plans can add valuable science-based insights to better understand the landscape and species to be managed. Such insights include more accurate guidance on, e.g., habitat protection, hunting regulations, or any collaborative management initiatives. This can also be highly valuable for lands not directly managed by conventional agencies, e.g., land managed by the military or Native communities throughout the Pacific Rim.

Ketchikan, Alaska is Alaska's First City and is famously known as the Salmon Capital of the world. Ketchikan is Lingít Aaní, the ancestral land of the Taantʼá Ḵwáan and Saanya Ḵwáan people of Revillagigedo Island.1 Ketchikan Gateway Borough is home to 13,754 residents.2 Being located on an island presents unique challenges to the residents regarding food security. Food that is not harvested or grown locally is shipped via barge from Seattle, WA. Limited published research exists regarding food security in Alaska, and primary research on food security in Ketchikan is nonexistent. The goal of this study is to analyze food insecurity and related variables in Ketchikan, AK. The study’s objectives are to measure food insecurity using results from an online survey, identify the most prevalent perceived barriers and facilitators to food security, and determine potential associations between food security status and barriers/facilitators to food security in Ketchikan, AK. This study utilized a retrospective (the past 12 months) cross-sectional study design to ascertain perceived barriers and facilitators to food security in Ketchikan, Alaska. A one-time, electronic survey was made available on Qualtrics and advertised via flyers, social media, and tables at a grocery store. Chi-square analyses were used to determine significant (p < 0.05) associations between food security status and perceived barriers and facilitators. The total sample analyzed was 108 Ketchikan residents. A significant relationship was found between food security status and access to transportation, sufficient money, the availability of meat, avoiding the grocery store: not due to COVID-19, receiving food from food bank, etc. and expense of food.

The Arctic is changing at a rapid pace, affecting virtually every aspect of life in the region, with major changes to sea ice, permafrost, and traditional lifestyles. These changes, in conjunction with globalization, have led to a rise in interest in the Arctic and accessing its resources. One considerable facet of accessing the Arctic is via maritime activity, with shorter transport times between Asia and Europe, fishing valuable stocks, and access to offshore oil and gas deposits. As countries such as Russia and China are intent on developing the Arctic and commercializing maritime trade routes, many living in the region are contending with the unintended impacts from increased maritime activity that may occur, threatening food and environmental security. While interest in the region is occurring across the Arctic, effects from increased maritime activity are already being felt in the Bering Strait region of Western Alaska, with decreases in multi-year sea ice important for subsistence and natural infrastructure, changes to migratory patterns of several marine species, and occurrences of pollution from vessels (Tsujii et al. 2021; NSIDC 2023; Raymond-Yakoubian and Daniel 2018; Hartsig et al. 2012). The impacts on food and environmental security are likely to be amplified within the Bering Strait due to its unique geography and ecosystem, serving as a migration corridor for many marine species, and as a natural bottleneck for anthropogenic activity, with a mere 50 nautical miles at its narrowest point and the Diomede Islands situated in the middle of the strait (Hartsig et al. 2012). Furthermore, the Bering Strait is the only connection between the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. With the heightened risk for negative impacts to the communities living within the Bering Strait region—such as various types of pollution from maritime activity, ship strikes (either to marine mammals or sea ice) and spread of invasive species—all affecting traditional subsistence lifestyles, a new policy to protect the Bering Strait is needed. Thus, the main objective of this study is to evaluate policy options that could mitigate the impacts of increasing vessel traffic through the Bering Strait. A maritime traffic management plan can be determined by analyzing how vessels behave in response to current policy. To best simulate the potential traffic the Bering Strait could receive as a part of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Northwest Passage (NWP), as well as the theoretical Transpolar Route, policy applicable to the Aleutian Archipelago (along the North Pacific Great Circle Route) is analyzed in addition to the current conditions of the Bering Strait. The policies analyzed within this study include the International Maritime Organization’s ‘Areas to be Avoided’(ATBA) and the United States Coast Guard ‘Alternative Planning Criteria’ (APC, through the Aleutian ATBAs). Analysis of vessel tracklines was performed with spatial software and tabulated data with statistical software. To analyze the ATBA policy for both the Aleutian Chain and Bering Strait, a spatio-temporal Hotspot Analysis was used to investigate pattern shifts in vessel traffic over the 2015 to 2022 dataset. To further analyze the behavior of vessels transiting through waters containing ATBAs, two additional analyses were conducted. For the APC policy and the Aleutian Archipelago ATBAs, email communication between vessel operators and the Marine Exchange of Alaska (MXAK) was analyzed, and information was categorized, such as weather, the type of email exchange, and the overall receptiveness to being contacted. To investigate whether port calls influenced adherence to the ATBAs, vessel traffic along Western Alaska was tabulated by season for the traffic docking at a community. From the analysis, three main findings emerged: (1) vessel behavior is impacted by the ATBA implementation for each respective region, (2) various factors, including weather and community access, continue to influence vessel behavior, and (3) communication from a third-party organization (in this study, MXAK) impacts adherence to the ATBA policy. As policy has influenced vessel behavior in both the Aleutian Archipelago and the Bering Strait region in the past, policy alternatives to manage increased maritime activity within the Bering Strait region can be useful to prevent negative impacts of vessel activity to Western Alaska communities. Using a modified Political, Economic, Social, Technological Analysis (in this analysis Environmental and Legal components were utilized), in conjunction with a Comparative Analysis, policy alternatives were examined for the best option given the current conditions (geopolitical, legal) that the Bering Strait stakeholders face. From the policy analyses conducted, the recommendation for managing increasing rates of maritime activity is to create a voluntary vessel monitoring system with open enrollment by any vessel with the Bering Strait that can provide weather advisories, warn of subsistence activities, and inform of areas to be avoided and other existing policies. Due to this voluntary nature, the vessel monitoring system can transcend both geopolitical tensions between Russia and the United States. Additionally, this policy alternative provides a way for mariners to be aware of any subsistence activities in the region. Upon further increases in maritime activity within the Bering Strait, it will be essential to revisit current policy for effectiveness, as well as include the participation and concerns of the communities located within the Bering Strait Region.