This study investigates the barriers faced by fats, oil, and grease (FOG) as an energy feedstock in the state of Oregon. FOG, which typically originates in food service establishments (FSEs), historically has been treated as waste, yet it also has the chemical make up to be an energy feedstock in...
Michigan’s State Department of Education issued a resolution in 2003 calling for all public K-12 schools to repeal their American Indian mascots and in 2013 the Michigan Department of Civil Rights filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education in response to school districts failing to do so....
Little is known about non-industrial private forestland (NIPF) owners in relation to Oregon’s two primary preferential forest property tax programs: Forestland Program – the default tax program for many forestland owners, and Small Tract Forestland Option (STF) – a voluntary program wherein landowners pay reduced annual property taxes and an...
The year, 2020, marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s ratification, granting American (primarily white) women the right to vote, however, women remain underrepresented in elected offices across the United States. In comparison to men, women face several additional challenges related to gender when attempting to reach the upper...
Nuclear fuel management is an optimization problem on many levels. Finding “viable” solutions for the core reload design problem is difficult without expert knowledge and software automation. Small modular reactors with a shared used fuel pool demonstrate a novel opportunity for fuel cycle optimization.
A Python package was developed and...
This study addresses the question: "What are the incentives and disincentives for conflict prevention and mitigation in the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and how do they factor into Reclamation's management of water in the western United States?" Incentives and disincentives for conflict prevention (i.e., actions taken to avoid conflict) and...
California and Steller sea lions (Zalophus californianus, Eumetopias jubatus, respectively) are considered sentinel species because they have long life spans, are long-term coastal residents, feed at high trophic levels, and have large blubber stores that serve as depots for anthropogenic toxicants. There are few studies on sea lion health and...
The First Gulf War that took place in Kuwait in 1991 resulted in one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of mankind. Extreme pollution affected the soil, waters, and the air in Kuwait. In this research I try to look into how the Kuwaiti government reacted to those...
Water governance has been identified as a crucial component to improving conditions and balancing supply and demand of water resources in the water-scarce Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. Finding a method for, and commencing the process of, evaluating water governance is thus imperative. This study analyzes the potential to...
In the Middle Rio Grande region of New Mexico, challenges such as droughts, growing urban demand for water, and newly listed endangered species have forced people to change the way that they manage water. New challenges in water governance have created cooperation among agencies that often have conflicting interests, goals,...