In order to combine my passion for creativity, my love for children, and my engineering background, I decided to create a very personalized thesis project. Princess Catie Goes to College is a children’s book about a young girl whose older sister leaves for college. I chose to write about this...
This study sought to conduct an in depth analysis of women’s first sexual experiences looking for factors contributing to the experience and the emotional outcomes of first intercourse. Fourteen heterosexual, female, college students were interviewed about their first sexual experience and sexual background using a semi-structured interview format. The narratives...
Ongoing discussion between the Oregon State University libraries' instruction program and the English composition program focuses on improving collaboration between our programs and more effectively integrating the research process into the English composition curriculum. The authors, formerly the library instruction coordinator and the Assistant Composition Coordinator, briefly describe a qualitative...
Vox comm is a digital wireless, voice-operated personal communicator developed as an electrical engineering Senior Design project. It is designed to provide a method for hassle-free, short-range communication. The product platform boasts of low power and small size for a host of usage models. This thesis details the product design...
Winter hardiness in barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a trait targeted by breeding programs in order to expand the potential area of adaptation of fall-sown cereals. Vernalization requirement is an important factor in winter hardiness. A vernalization requirement is an extended period of low temperature required for transition from the vegetative...
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a phenotypically variable disorder of hemoglobin that leads to abnormally shaped and dysfunctional red blood cells. Several studies have attempted to construct early predictive models for SCD, including Miller et al.’s (2000) model which uses easily identifiable predictors in early life. The primary aim of...
The second in a series of articles published in OSU This Week by members of the Faculty Senate Library Committee regarding threats to an open and sustainable system of scholarly communication and potential solutions. Article describes what journal impact factors are and how they are determined and makes recommendations for...
Expectations for technology proficiency in counseling and counselor education have increased; nevertheless, very little information is available in the counseling literature which describes how to effectively evaluate online resources from a design and utility standpoint. This study provides a model for such assessments, employing an affordable small scale usability study...
Hard copy of presentation delivered May 20, 2003, at OSU Memorial Union as part of a faculty panel, "USA PATRIOT Act Forum: Effects on Oregon State University." Sponsored by Faculty for Peace and Justice, and the Program for Ethics, Science and the Environment.
The project team surveyed and interviewed forty identified experts within the diverse tsunami community. The survey revealed that this community is a sophisticated user of Internet search engines and tools and is very familiar with existing information. The sites mentioned most frequently as being helpful were those of the National...
The Valley Library Reference Collection is under-utilized, occupies valuable physical space, and represents a significant investment in collection funds. As reference resources are available electronically, we have not effectively shaped our print or digital reference collection. The physical collection ages as we cancel reference continuations without replacing them with electronic...
The purpose of this project was to investigate play and our cultural assumptions as to its usefulness or lack there of. The concepts of hard work versus hard play were explored in order to discover when human beings are operating at their best. In terms of innovation and productivity in...
Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) is an emerging form of liver disease associated with obesity, type II diabetes and dyslipidemia. As the prevalence of these metabolic conditions increases, so too has the occurrence of NASH in all sectors of the population. The pathology of this disease is similar to its alcoholic form,...
As genetically modified products come under greater production, tensions surrounding the potential benefits and harms of the technology have appeared in divergent policy between the European Union (EU) and certain member states. The purpose of this thesis is to consider whether some type of international law, also called an environmental...
The end of the Cold War brought about changes within international political relations that resulted in expanded interest in global civil society. Such developments, like globalization and democratization, have encouraged the growth of social and political organizations. Political scientists have found that these inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations have a significant...
Science is difficult for even its researchers to understand. Science journalists must understand scientific discoveries well enough to write clear, accurate explanations of scientific discoveries for laypeople. A sense of ethical judgment will help journalists ensure that their accounts are reliable and appropriate. Responsible science journalists will maintain a working...
Wind energy is a cornerstone to the world of renewables. It is widely used in many parts of the world as a clean and effective form of power generation. However, wind power has a number of drawbacks, which limits its use in many regions. Solar power has been used not...
One goal of the Oregon Library Association's Vision 2010 is to promote a strong and diverse workforce throughout all of the state's libraries. The forecasted shortage of librarians in the next decade prompted the OLA Board to request a demographic study of Oregon's libraries. A simple survey was adminstered at...
The decisions in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001) (SWANCC) and Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. ___(2006), deviated from the more broad interpretations of congressional intent granted by the court in past assessments of the constitutionality of environmental...
During the 1970’s the United States experienced several periods of high inflation that have been at least partially attributed to positive oil price shocks. The effectiveness of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at controlling the price of oil has varied over time, as well as the responsiveness of U.S....
The LIGO interferometers have reached their designed sensitivity level which is greater than any other interferometer ever built. At this point, it is important to have a proper understanding of small perturbations that might still exist (until now these issues did not come to the forefront because other more critical...
Biological introductions may considerably alter the composition and community dynamics of invaded areas thereby changing many ecosystem processes including productivity, decomposition, nutrient cycling and hydrology. The effects on native species may be obscured by a lack of information on distribution and abundance patterns. The Japanese eelgrass, Zostera japonica, was introduced...
This narrative details the evolution of a collaborative teaching project into an educational Website about Bibliotherapy, which is the process of facilitating personal development or problem resolution through books. Working with a Counselor Education colleague, the Education librarian at Oregon State University helped develop a tool to evaluate books for...
Resource managers of Oregon’s tidal wetlands require an improved GIS layer for management of existing tidal wetland habitat and areas considered for tidal wetland restoration. A reconnaissance project was initiated, such that interpretations of remote sensing data, the National Wetland Inventory, Oregon Estuary Plan Book and additional management tools were...
7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources. In 2005 faculty in the Northern Arizona University School of Forestry initiated a project to replace the required sophomore-level writing course taught by the English Department with a new course, “Writing in Forestry,” taught within the School. The goal of the...
Many economic development methods over the years have tried to solve the problem of poverty with varied success. Microenterprise development is a method that works with the poor to create small self-run businesses to increase their income, and therefore bring more freedom from disease illiteracy and discrimination. Within microenterprise development...
Program description: Do users want simpler access to "best sources" for subject research? Should libraries filter information by discipline, subject area or course? Should information be tailored to undergraduate level? This presentation will present findings from research on these and other questions.
Spending time in a German speaking country may aid in vocabulary acquisition and production. This study hypothesized a concrete link between written language use and experiences abroad. Intermediate German students’ vocabulary uses in impromptu essays were evaluated by counting the number of total word, unique words, and content words. This...
Celiac disease, an autoimmune response triggered by the consumption of seed storage proteins of cereals, affects an estimated 1% of the human population. In the case of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), one of the world’s most consumed cereals, alcohol-soluble proteins, the gliadins, have been identified as the allergy-eliciting agents. Previous...
In schools at every level, teachers and administrators are under pressure to demonstrate how effective they are by showing exactly what it is their students are learning. These pressures have fueled campus-wide assessment efforts at schools across North America. Librarians at Oregon State University saw this as an opportunity to...
This article details the development of the Library Instruction Wiki (http://instructionwiki.org): an effort to develop a web-based, knowledge sharing resource. Though some library instruction is specific to a given institution or class, much of what instruction librarians teach is similar. Library instructors have repeatedly expressed the desire to share resources,...
At Oregon State University (OSU), writing instructors and librarians collaboratively teach research writing and information literacy in first year composition courses (FYC). A four-week unit focuses on the connections between critical thinking, writing and learning, and information literacy. This paper describes the process of developing, implementing, and refining this collaborative...
The Harderian gland (HG) of the red-sided garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis, is a secretory structure that plays a role in the vomeronasal system by solubilizing semiochemicals such as prey chemoattractants and the female sexual attractiveness pheromone. The HG produces secretions containing pheromone-binding proteins that form a complex with pheromone...
The prey consumption rates of two estuarine crab species were compared: the introduced Carcinus maenas and the native Cancer magister. Similar sized crabs of each species were placed into individual perforated plastic boxes and then placed in a seawater table. Each crab was offered 50 Mytilus trossulus mussels (15-25mm) per...
Rotifers and brine shrimp (Artemia) are important prey items for rearing marine fish larvae. Their availability in the water column may be reduced when they are transferred to larval rearing tanks at lower temperature. In this study, Brachionus rotundiformis (SS-type) and Brachionus plicatilis (L-type) were semi-continuously cultured and fed on...
List of abstracts for posters and papers presented at the 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources, held March 13-15 2008 at Oregon State University. Contact the author(s) for more information on papers is listed here for which no entry appears in the conference collection at: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/dspace/handle/1957/7138
The Oregon State University Libraries began working on implementation of an institutional repository through a five month planning process. The Task Force responsible for the planning identified campus needs for such a service, examined persistent issues and challenges, and made recommendations for a pilot project. These steps are summarized and...
The computer game industry continues to progress toward realistic-looking character motion. However, even in state-of-the-art games, the use of motion capture data in character animation may result in errors such as “foot slipping,” where the feet do not match up with the floor properly during translation. Various algorithms have been...
Rockfish of the genus Sebastes are important components of Oregon reef communities. I examined patterns of age and growth in young-of-year rockfish across two nested spatial scales – local and regional – along the Oregon coast. Using otolith microstructural examination, I examined the relative importance of local versus regional factors...
DNA mismatch repair (MMR) is an evolutionary conserved process that functions to maintain genomic integrity through the correction of mismatches that have escaped proofreading. Mutations in the MMR gene Mlh1 are associated with approximately 50% of all cases of Lynch syndrome, a hereditary predisposition to colorectal cancer, through varying and...
The 2007 Oregon State University Diversity Action Plan is designed to provide a strategic direction for all of the university's diversity-related efforts.