We investigated ontogenetic changes in body morphology of Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) using three three-dimensional (3D) photogrammetry, to estimate surface areas and body volumes for 42 Weddell seals. We sampled ten weaned pups, twelve juveniles (age one or two years), 11 non-breeding adult females, and 9 adult females who had...
This research effort considers bicyclist’s left-turn behavior at roadway intersections with varying levels of traffic control; specifically, seeking to address the question where do bicyclists look to acquire information. A demographic comparison was made to determine if factors such as gender or experience influence the nature of how a bicyclist...
From the formation of reservations, Native Americans have faced many
difficulties and continue to deal with cultural barriers today. Particularly within a medical
setting, there is a worldview disconnect between western medicine and traditional Native
healing. It would be useful to interview Native pupils to learn about their uses of...
The Van der Pauw method for transport measurements of conductivity and carrier concentration were tested on indium-tin-oxide (ITO) films and silicon wafers, and then implemented on Cu10xAgxZn2Sb4S13 thin films. ITO was used as a test case for high temperature transport measurements because it a well characterized semi-metal. The mobility of...
The purpose of this project was to research, design and build a shoe press for a local company called Soft Star Shoes. Soft Star Shoes were looking for different ways to replace their barging process, which is the process of attaching the rubber sole of the shoe to the upper...
This study investigated the composition and character of organic matter on suspended particulate material (SPM) in the Columbia River estuary system to determine the contribution of biological activity in lateral bays to the greater nutrient cycle of the river. Water samples were collected during neap and spring tidal forcing (25...
The role of political parties within legislation has been greatly debated over the decades. As health care continues to be an issue of concerns and contention, the question of how politics affects this industry is of importance. Utilizing Congressional records and websites to determine roll call and voice voting within...
Recent studies have shown that there is a significant amount of dissatisfaction and
stress associated with finances, job security, and work. There are many health related
consequences that manifest in response to this continual stress that we experience in
our professional lives. These include obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol,...
Native American traditional foodways serve as one of the most important resources for indigenous communities because these resources provide a variety of non-physical cultural assets and health benefits to Native groups through the medium of food. The demolition of North America’s foodways through colonization has had adverse effects on indigenous...
In today’s media driven society where images stand in for words, we see an increase of attractive people selling us ideas and products. We begin to view their attractiveness as powerful, and influential on our own opinions and they gain credibility with us because of this. But what if it...
Title: The Influence of External Focus of Attention Feedback on ACL Injury Related Landing Biomechanics Purpose: To investigate whether a one-time dose of external feedback would result in immediate changes in landing biomechanics related to ACL injury risk and if any changes are retained after 48 hours. Methods: We used...
Mentoring can have a great impact on students during their higher education career. This influential role of mentors can be found valuable for a wide variety of populations, and has specifically monumental influences for underrepresented students. The NASPA Undergraduate Fellows Program (NUFP) aims to facilitate the mentor-mentee relationship for historically...
The newest pilot project at Tarangire National Park (TAR) is Income Generating Programs (IGP) where community groups organize themselves around an activity that earns income. TAR initiated the project by paying for ten members from each of the three existing community groups on the park’s northern end and fifteen members...
Dutch elm disease (DED) is a disease of elm trees caused by three species of Ascomycota fungi: Ophiostoma ulmi, Ophiostoma novo-ulmi, and Ophiostoma himal-ulmi. There are also two subspecies of O. novo-ulmi: subsp. americana and subsp. novo-ulmi. The pathogen is spread by bark beetles, which inhabit and traverse different elms....
With changing climate conditions and human impacts on ecosystems becoming a
big focus of study, it has become even more crucial to understand how our ecosystems
work. Community structure within rocky intertidal habitats is governed by a mix of
environmental conditions and species interactions. This project examined the effects of...
Freeze-drying, or lyophilization, has shown great promise in addressing many of the logistical challenges of storing and preserving red blood cells (RBCs). A crucial part of any future RBC lyophilization protocol is the primary drying temperature, which affects the sample drying rate and the dried cake’s ability to form a...
Geologic CO₂ sequestration is a climate change mitigation strategy that involves the injection of supercritical CO₂ into deep underground rock formations. This thesis focuses on capillary trapping in which capillary forces immobilize CO₂ bubbles at the pore scale. During injection of supercritical CO₂, brine is displaced in what is known...
The Interactive Virtual Laboratories (IVLs) are a series of two-dimensional simulations designed to help students conceptually learn difficult concepts in thermodynamics. Three studies were performed to help elucidate how the IVLs affect student learning. In the first study, eight students were observed while completing one of the IVLs. The students...
For many years, engine overhearing has been the major cause for vehicle breakdowns and engine malfunctions for most teams in Endurance events at Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) Series competitions. Additionally, with a growing importance of aerodynamics to the overall success of the Global Formula Racing at these events,...
Although U.S. Latin@s are more affected by major depressive disorder than non-Latin@ whites, they are less likely to utilize mental health services. The purpose of this project is to create a children’s book that promotes the utilization of mental health services among U.S. Latin@s with major depressive disorder. This book...
This study outlines the challenges an entrepreneur faces when trying to innovate using public display of music rights. Public display of music rights are the licenses an individual or business needs to play music for a group of people larger than your immediate family either inside your home or in...
Presentation entitled : The Challenge of Finding Where SOD Gets Zinc: Identifying Novel Techniques to Recombinantly Express Metallothionein / by Nick B. West, Joseph Beckman and Daniel Sudakin
This study looks at whether two physical characteristics, physical attractiveness and perceived competence, have an impact on student analysts finding large discrepancies between current price and target price. Equity reports published online by undergraduate and MBA students involved in student investment clubs and portfolio management classes are combined with pictures...
Though previous genetic research studies performed on Caenorhabditis elegans
found that high levels of endogenous oxidative stress resulted in decreased health, and
that mitochondrial DNA deletions accumulated with age in these organisms, no studies
have been conducted to link these two separate findings. This study correlated these
separate results by...
On April 20th, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico malfunctioned leading to a 4.9 million barrel oil spill. The released oil affected marine life, coastal ecosystems, and the economic framework of the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf spill spurred research on absorbent materials and engineering...
We do not fully understand reasons behind extinction of populations and species. Consequently, our ability to anticipate extinction (which can be considered a permanent type of an ecological threshold) has remained elusive. In particular, it is not clear how the attributes of episodic disturbance regimes can elicit extinction. In this...
The novella follows a protagonist named Charlie Tinger and his daughter Rainy. The purpose of this novella was to highlight the complexity of a father-daughter relationship, projecting a quirky and special bond between the two. Written with the intent of eliciting emotion in the form of humor and sadness, I...
Climate change, population growth, aging infrastructure, poor water management, and aquifer depletion are reducing US water supply. Increasing water scarcity will lead to an inability to support agriculture, industry, energy, and municipal demand that will negatively affect US economic growth and national security. Traditional water policy measures of expanding supply...
Many public opinion surveys indicate that patients desire an open dialogue on spirituality/religion with their physicians. What role does spirituality play in the physician/patient relationship and in what contexts do these conversations arise? What do physicians think about the appropriateness of such discussions? Because the role of spirituality in clinical...
Stands of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii ssp. menziesii Mirb. (Franco)) near the Oregon Coast are showing signs of growth reduction from the foliar pathogen Phaeocryptopus gaeumannii that causes Swiss Needle Cast (SNC) disease. To better understand the mechanisms of needle drop through disease, and to learn the degree of variability in...
In the Capabilities Approach literature “capabilities” are the real freedoms individuals possess to achieve certain “functionings,” which are the doings and beings that constitute a good life. I argue that this approach requires, or at least can benefit from, an account of the psychosocial mechanisms involved in capability limitation. The...
Coral reef health has been in severe decline around the globe in the past several
decades, in many cases due to direct human impact. Human action, such as overfishing,
habitat destruction and nutrient loading, has caused coral coverage to drop to record lows,
threatening the future of these critically important...
Studies indicate that many cancers occur more frequently in adult males than females. This male predominance must either be due to disparate environmental exposures or innate, biologic mechanisms, or a combination of the two. Using data and statistical software from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, male:female incidence...
Diatoms are single celled eukaryotic microalgae that self-assemble complex SiO₂
nanostructures by sillafin proteins within their cell wall. There has been increasing
interest in mimicking the diatom’s silica self-assembly process for fabricating metal
oxide nanoparticles, namely germanium dioxide (GeO₂). GeO₂ has a higher refractive
index than silica, enabling it to...
As a major biological model for biomedical research, maintaining healthy
zebrafish (Danio rerio) is imperative for accurate and consistent lab results. This
retrospective study focuses on Pseudoloma neurophilia, a microsporidium, because it is
the most common pathogen found in laboratory zebrafish. An online database maintained
by the Zebrafish International Resource...
In the beginning of her travelogue, A Motor‐Flight Through France (1908), Edith Wharton declares that “the motor‐car has restored the romance of travel.” Many scholars have taken this statement as an index to the book’s themes. However, my reading closely examines particular moments of travel (specifically Wharton’s visits to Beauvais...
Court cases, wills, and letters are common examples of surviving primary texts
from colonial Latin America. These documents are important to historians because they
provide a unique glimpse into the lives of ordinary people who lived hundreds of years
ago. This thesis is a recreation of these types of primary...
As organisms age they lose the ability to respond to both exogenous and endogenous stresses, therefore placing them at a greater risk for the development of many diseases. The transcription factor Nrf2 is responsible for the induction of many oxidative stress response genes and therefore 3proteins. Additionally, Nrf2-mediated stress response...
The ATRIAS agile humanoid robot, along with a number of other spring-mass walking
machines, currently have two instabilities: one resulting from inertial forces on the torso
which cause the robot to spin like a top, and another resulting from stiff ground collisions
which cause chattering of the point-contact toes. This...
One of the tasks that continues to prove difficult in robotics is the ability to grasp objects of varying shapes. It is time-consuming to acquire large amounts of real-world data in order to train accurate classifiers that can predict the success or failure of a grasp. To solve this issue,...
Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) are portable medical devices that can be used by laypersons to treat two common types of cardiac arrest. Awareness surrounding the use of AEDs and willingness to use them in emergency situations is documented in few populations. This investigation aimed to address this gap by gauging...
The Hawaiian Archipelago is a biologically diverse environment with dynamic interactions between human and biological populations. Political, social, and scientific communities are placing importance on sustainable management of fisheries resources throughout the islands. Many economically important bottomfish in Hawaii have declined in population size due to anthropogenic and environmental pressures....
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between physical activity level and motor skill proficiency in school-aged children ages 9-18 with developmental disabilities. Physical activity level was assessed using Actigraph GT3X+ accelerometers, which participants wore for all hours of the day for seven days. Motor skill proficiency...
In this investigation, six different endogenous thyroid hormone derivatives—T₄, T₃, TA₄, TA₃, T₁-Amine, and N-Acetylated T₁-Amine—were tested to gain insight into their permeability coefficients and efflux ratios across a monolayer of Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK II) cells. The results indicate that T₃ and T₄ were unable to traverse the membrane...
Moral elevation, or elevation, is a prosocial emotional state elicited by witnessing displays of altruism or moral beauty. For this study, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and autonomic physiology activity were monitored during elevation induction. We hypothesized that changes would occur in mPFC activity during elevation and that these would significantly...
Purpose
To provide an update on the amount and type of physical activity education that occurs in medical education in the United States.
Methods
All accredited doctor of medicine (M.D., n = 141) and doctor of osteopathic medicine (D.O., n = 29) institutions were reviewed using their publicly accessible websites....
Firemaster 550 (FM550) is an additive flame retardant mixture used within polyurethane foam and is increasingly found in house dust and the environment due to leaching. In this study, we sought to investigate mono-substituted isopropylated triaryl phosphate (mITP), a major component of FM550, which has been shown to cause cardiotoxicity...
One method for CO2 sequestration is to store the liquid form of CO2 in small cement wells in the ground. An issue with this method is the susceptibility of cement to fracture and thus release the CO2. One proposition is to fill these cracks with biofilm of the bacteria Sporosarcina...
As the climate conditions in regions shift, research seeks to gain more
understanding of agricultural producers’ behavioral choices specifically in relation to
climate change and alternative practices. This research aims to compare elicitation tools
to find the most appropriate method to elicit agricultural producers’ choices and attitudes
toward changing production...
The lionfish (Pterois volitans) is a successful invasive predator with large impacts on native fish populations in the western Atlantic. Lionfish predation may affect competition between prey species so it is important to understand whether lionfish display preferences between prey species. I investigated lionfish and native graysby grouper prey preference...