Over 70% of the Antarctic krill population exists along the Antarctic Peninsula, a region undergoing rapid climate change. Recent studies have shown a clear correlation between krill recruitment each spring and the timing and coverage of sea ice the winter before, with less sea ice and a shorter duration being...
Visual working memory (VWM) allows us temporarily hold images in our minds and manipulate them. As an example, you can remember a face you just saw, or try to imagine how a room would look with a different arrangement of furniture. Previous studies have shown that individuals with low VWM...
Vibrio cholerae is a gram-negative gammaproteobacteria, well
known for causing the watery-diarrheal disease Cholera. V. cholerae is
endemic to the marine and freshwater ecosystems of India and
surrounding aquatic environments within that region. Primary
reservoirs include brackish water and estuaries. The primary symptom
is rapid dehydration due to watery diarrhea....
Native to the Pacific Northwest, Ceratomyxashastais a myxosporeanparasite that infects wild and cultivated salmon and has a significance impact on its population in the Klamath River basin. The study suggests that the transmission of mixed genotypes of the parasite are common in Chinook salmon but the age of the fish...
There exists a growing need to establish a better in vitro model for evaluating PAH toxicity and carcinogenicity and to improve assessments of risk to human health, especially to the complex mixtures that exist in the environment. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous environmental contaminants due to the incomplete combustion...
During volcanic eruptions ascending magma undergoes decompression, resulting in a decrease of dissolved H2O. This creates unstable conditions for the hydrous mineral amphibole. As a result a reaction rim forms from anhydrous minerals such as pyroxene, plagioclase, and Fe-Ti oxides (Rutherford and Hill, 1993). There have been numerous studies done...
Self-directed mobility is a fundamental human right. Typically developing children engage in mobility for a majority of their day, but children with disabilities do not have the same opportunities. Children with disabilities are at a disadvantage and have a greater risk for developmental delays in physical and cognitive skills, along...
Three key tectonic domains of western North America, the Walker Lane Fault Zone (WLFZ), northwestern Basin and Range (NWBR), and Cascade arc, intersect in south-central Oregon. Bounded by Cascade arc volcanoes in the west, the Klamath Graben is traditionally regarded as the western-most extent of the Basin and Range extensional...
The presence of nitrates and nitrites in food is associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal cancer and, in infants, methemoglobinemia. Nitrites are produced endogenously through the oxidation of nitric oxide and through a reduction of nitrate by commensal bacteria in the mouth and gastrointestinal tract. Despite the physiologic roles...
Consuming cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli sprouts, kale, Brussels sprouts, and bok choy is associated with several health benefits, such as a decreased risk of certain cancers. Cruciferous vegetables contain the glucosinolate, glucoraphanin (GFN). Cutting, chopping or chewing these vegetables releases the enzyme myrosinase, which transforms GFN into sulforaphane (SFN)....
The purpose of this research was to discover if using online homework contributes to an overall higher enjoyment of the Introductory Psychology class, given that other factors are held constant. Students who used the online homework PsychPortlal for the Introductory Psychology 202 class would rate the “overall enjoyment of the...
The gas phase electron-diffraction (GED) technique has been the primary method used to expand our knowledge and understanding of gas-phase molecular structures. The technique yields interatomic distances and bond angles that are of use in both theoretical and experimental studies.
The GED structural parameters are thermal averages over all vibrational...
Dibenzo[def,p]chrysene (DBC) is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and an IARC classified 2A probable human carcinogen. Mouse progeny transplacentally exposed to DBC have been shown to develop lung and liver tumors, with liver tumors developing predominantly in males later in life. Sulforaphane (SFN) is an isothiocyanate that plays a crucial...
Previous studies have suggested that negatively valenced faces (e.g., angry faces) automatically capture attention away from faces with other emotional valences (e.g., happy faces and neutral faces). The present study evaluated whether this attentional bias enhances memory of the negative emotional faces. Participants first performed a gender discrimination task on...
Nanostars have many potential applications, particularly in biomedicine, such as drug delivery, detection assays, and even cancer treatment. Seeing how their plasmon changes in response to changes to the environment of the nanostars can give us an insight to the stability of the nanostars. Our current studies involve the effect...
Using available APIs, we can have the ability to extract information from an online database and visualize the information. These information models are used to create services based on geographic, structural, and semantic data on the urban scale. Spatial data infrastructure is the arrangements used to enable the combination of...
People judge each other’s intelligence all the time for a variety of reasons such as choosing a lab partner or at a job interview, but how accurate are these judgments? This study assesses the accuracy with which individuals can judge the intelligence of another after a 5-minute face-to-face interaction. One...
Symbioses are intimate interactions between two different organisms. In a pathogenic interaction, one organism benefits and the other is generally harmed; whereas in a mutualistic interaction, the members reciprocally benefit. Rhodococcus is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria that persist in a variety of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Although better known...
Childhood health is a strong determinant of adult health, including overweight and obesity. Rural children and adults experience a greater obesity prevalence compared to children and adults living in more urban places. The goal of Generating Rural Options for Weight-Healthy Kids & Communities (GROW HKC) is to prevent childhood obesity...
Freezing to death in winter is a danger faced by ectothermic organisms throughout temperate climates. One adaptation of lepidopteran insects for overwinter survival is the sequestration of antifreeze solutes in the hemolymph prior to pupal diapause. This acts to depress freezing points during the long and immobile pupal stage during...
Previous behavioral studies have suggested that the automaticity of face recognition depends on familiarity. We sought converging evidence for this claim using electrophysiological measures. In Experiment 1, participants first rated their familiarity with 6 male celebrities. They then performed dual tasks in which Task 1 required a tone/noise discrimination. For...
In current nanotoxicology research, there is a lack of standardization in reporting of zebrafish exposure media and sonication practices. This lack of standardization in use and reporting methods has made reproducing nanoparticle (NP) toxicity results between labs a common issue. It is important to have a standardized way of reporting...
During fall term of 2015 and winter and spring term of 2016 I assisted in research within Dr. Emily Ho’s lab. The project that I assisted in looked at the effects of low zinc status and arsenic exposure in mice. Zinc is an essential micronutrient involved in numerous cellular processes...
After a joint injury, arthrogenic muscle inhibition (AMI) leads to decreased neuromuscular control and strength, as neural inhibition prevents volitional activation of the entire motor neuron pool. Traditional rehabilitation techniques such as strength training are unable to effectively reduce AMI and there is a need to identify interventions that can...
The symbiotic relationship between cnidarians and algae is important to the marine ecosystem due to the photosynthesis produced by the algae and the coral reefs that cnidarians provide. Corals provide their algal partner with a safe home and the algae supply the cnidarians with inorganic materials as a food source....
Consumption of raw dairy products has been linked to diseases such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli and Listeria. Current retail sale of raw milk in Oregon is limited to disease-free goat or sheep milk. Raw cow milk is legally for sale on farms with less than three cows. Consumers have...
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Salvia hispanica, also known as Chia, is an annual plant of the mint family, Lamiaceae. Chia is a vascular plant with perennating buds initially formed at or within the soil surface. Chia grows to roughly one meter tall at maturity, with leaves growing in opposite arrangement, small purple flowers,...
There are few modern isotopic ages of igneous rocks and polymetallic (Pb-Zn-Ag-Cu-Au) hydrothermal mineral veins of the Mt. Thompson quadrangle in southwestern Montana. Lithology ages of this region vary from approximately 85-80 Ma Butte granite(Kbg) (Lund et al. 2002) to 48.6 Ma of Lowland Creek Volcanic Field (LCVF) (Dudas et...
A novel approach for the colorimetric detection of creatinine in a paper/polycaprolactone hybrid microfluidic device using alkaline3,5-dinitrobenzoate (DNB) is described. The reaction parameters of reagent concentration, alkalinity, and analysis time are optimized for fast reaction times and high color yield. Microfluidic devices incorporating this assay are designed and fabricated to...
Do freshmen achieve less of their personal and academic short-term goals in comparison to upperclassmen?
Some may intuitively assume that due to age, or lack of experience, college freshmen would have lower perceived task-specific ability (self-efficacy) and actually achieve less (goal-completion ranging from 0% to 100%). Differences between various class-standing...
The origin of hornblendite and other mafic mineral-rich veins found in Cretaceous plutonic rocks from the Northern Cascades is currently not well known. This study seeks to investigate the possible relationship between host plutonic rocks and hornblendite and pyroxene-rich veins by comparing the chemical compositions and petrographic features between the...
Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Rhodococcus fascians are plant pathogenic bacteria that can induce crown and leafy galls on plants, respectively. Infection by these bacteria results in disfigured, unsellable plants, leading to significant economic losses to the nursery industry. A. tumefaciens and R. fascians are capable of infecting a broad range of...
Beneficial insects could provide valuable pest control services on Oregon Christmas tree farms, but a limited amount of data exist that quantifies the type and abundance of beneficial insects on farms. This study surveyed beneficial insects on two farms that differed in their management strategies as well as other abiotic...
Fever responses to an immune challenge have been studied in endothermic creatures, but studies of the equivalence is lacking in ectotherms. In this study, heterophil counts were shown to be significantly higher in individuals immune challenged with LPS when compared to a control group. This is indicative of an innate...
Any interaction with another person requires some judgement of their characteristics from a short amount of time. Each day a person can interact with many individuals and quick judgments have to be made in each situation to decide how to act or react. This means a person can make hundreds...
This research analyzes the effects of unauthorized immigration on unemployment levels in the states of Texas and California in the United States. Data from the Department of Homeland Security is utilized to best estimate the size of unauthorized populations. This research finds that a one person increase in the unauthorized...
Ice core records provide us a way to investigate past climate and look in detail at past atmospheric conditions. With, on average, higher CO2 concentrations in the Greenland record, the focus of this project was on the potential mechanisms responsible for the higher CO2 concentrations in the Greenland ice core...
Despite being a highly charismatic and frequently exhibited organism,
Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) population dynamics
are poorly understood. Basic monitoring data for this species is
limited to bycatch and stomach contents of other fisheries species. An
essential step to a better estimation of population size and
productivity is to...
