For more than a decade research on student involvement has informed practitioners in their understanding of the development that results from students' involvement inside and outside the classroom. Since 2006, researchers have explored the socially responsible leadership practices as well as the rise in the popularity of community grassroots organizations;...
The contemporary student veteran population is growing rapidly as service members who served in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts take advantage of the Post 9/11 Veteran Educational Assistance Act of 2008 to receive educational benefits to attend college (Cook & Kim, 2009). However, student veterans entering college today have a...
Cicero wrote in Tusculan Disputations that we are born with the seeds of virtue which, if allowed to ripen, would lead us to a happy life (Cicero 227). However, as things are, we find ourselves in a world of "iniquity among a medley of wrong beliefs" that inhibits the ripening...
Continuous Improvement (CI) is an integral part of hospital administration. This study examined the relationship between five CI variables against six hospital criterion measures of, wait times to prepare a room, patient costs per day, waiting time for lab results, reportable errors, patient satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. The research was...
The use of data extracted from particle image velocimetry (PIV) along with vector and tensor visualization techniques provides a valuable tool for understanding a complex flow field. By studying a simple geometric structure such as a cylinder under a simple transient waveform, fundamental mechanisms of wake development under solitary wave...
This qualitative study investigated how urban adolescents' in Botswana personalized bedrooms to express identity and develop place attachment because identity development in adolescents is important. Participants living in Gaborone, capital city of Botswana, were purposively selected from local schools. There were ten (10) non-sharing urban adolescents aged 14-18 years. Data...
Amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS) thin-film transistors (TFTs) constitute the central theme of this thesis. Within this theme, three primary areas of focus are pursued.
The first focus is the realization of a transparent three-stage ring oscillator with buffered output and an output frequency in the megahertz range. This leads to...
Originally used as a method to densify loose soils, controlled blasting has expanded its applicability to geotechnical engineering by becoming a research tool to physically generate liquefaction for full-scale in-situ tests, ranging from seismic performance of deep foundations to evaluating ground improvement techniques. Current methods used to design the blasting...
Recent advances in nanocrystalline materials production are expected to impact the development of next generation low-cost and/or high efficiency solar cells. For example, semiconductor nanocrystal inks are used to lower the fabrication cost of the absorber layers of the solar cells. In addition, some quantum confined nanocrystals display electron-hole pair...
Medical imaging technologies play a vital role in early diagnosis of disease by providing internal images of the human body to medical professionals. Computed Tomography (CT) is currently the most commonly used medical imaging technology because it is easy to use, detectors and scanners are constantly improving, and more importantly,...
Over the last decade, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) has documented a precipitous decline in the Crooked River redband trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) population, prompting this study to address potential factors contributing to the decline. There are two main goals to this project: (1) identify potential factors contributing...
State-and-transition models (STMs) have been successfully used to
describe ecological dynamics in woodlands, shrublands, grasslands, and several other ecosystems. Changes in vegetation and soil are measured to gauge and predict plant community dynamics within ecological states and transitions between alternative ecological states. Ecological states and their boundaries are defined by...
My thesis is a collection of short stories in which I explore themes like loss, identity, and memory. The collection includes both short stories and short short stories, and through in-depth exploration of character and form, the stories here attempt to fit into a tradition of writers articulating the experiences...
Recent estimates indicate that over 50% of gay men acquire HIV from their
main sexual partners while in their relationship (Sullivan et al., 2009). Despite this
statistic, the majority of research has focused on individual factors as predictors of
unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) and not on relationship factors. The few...
Nearly 3000 juvenile Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and coho (O. kisutch) salmon captured in nearshore waters off the coasts of Washington and Oregon from 1999-2004 were tested for infection by Renibacterium salmoninarum, Nanophyetus salmincola, and skin metacercariae. First, three quantitative PCR primer/probe sets were compared for detection of R. salmoninarum; amplification...
The 100 North Pacific rockfish species in the genus Sebastes are highly diverse. Rockfishes fertilize their eggs internally and release swimming larvae. Complex courting behaviors may allow female rockfish to be selective about their mates and may promote and maintain speciation. In this study, I applied genetic techniques to survey...
China has experienced rapid economic growth in the last twenty years, accompanied by large-scale land conversion, severe environmental degradation, and rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Designing policies for sustainable development requires a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between economic growth, land-use change, carbon sequestration and emissions in China. This dissertation...
In the Pacific Northwest, multiple studies have found negative effects of
timber harvest on stream amphibians, but the results have been highly variable and
region-specific. In this collection of studies, I examined the short term effect of timber
harvest using a field study, and used lab work to examine a...
The substantial wave energy resource of the US Pacific Northwest (i.e. off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and N. California) is assessed and characterized. Archived spectral records from ten wave measurement buoys, operated and maintained by the National Data Buoy Center and the Coastal Data Information Program, form the basis...
This dissertation develops mixed family selection for Pacific oysters using marker-based pedigree reconstruction. It focuses on improving the efficiency of parentage assignment, determining the optimum life stage to mix oyster families for rearing and selection, comparing mixed-family and separate-family selective breeding in the field, and applying the mixed method to...
Current estimates indicate that between one-third and one-half of women in the United States have at least one abortion in their lifetime, and that many women encounter socioeconomic, logistical, or social obstacles in the process of seeking care (Jones 2005, Guttmacher 2008). The purpose of this study is to critically...
It is essential to study the relationship between environmental features and human land-use activities that can provide a better understanding of human-environment interactions. In a response, this dissertation addresses the human-environment issues from different perspectives in three essays. The first essay conducts an integrated analysis to investigate the impacts of...
Used Nuclear Fuel (UNF) contains transuranic (TRU) elements and numerous fission products as a result of the uranium fission process and neutron activation that occur in commercial light water power reactors. Recent environmental and nuclear proliferation concerns have spawned the development of advanced reprocessing techniques to close the nuclear fuel...
Increasing numbers of children are entering kindergarten without the behavioral skills needed to cope with the demands of the classroom environment. Moreover, a number of studies have documented that young children's behavioral regulation (including attention, working memory, and inhibitory control skills) plays an important role in later academic achievement (McClelland,...
Behavioral self-regulation has emerged as an important predictor of academic success as early as preschool. Few studies, however, have examined ways to improve children's behavioral self-regulation in preschool, prior to formal school entry. This dissertation includes two studies examining a pilot intervention using classroom games to improve behavioral self-regulation with...
Numerical modeling of methane-steam reforming is performed in a micro/mini-channel with heat input through catalytic channel walls. The low-Mach number, variable density Navier-Stokes equations together with multicomponent reactions are solved using a parallel numerical framework. Methane-steam reforming is modeled by three reduced-order reactions occurring on the reactor walls. The surface...
Steam-methane reforming is a well understood industrial process used for generating hydrogen and synthesis gas. The reaction is generally carried out with residence times on the order of one second. By performing this reaction at microscales it is possible to take advantage of increased heat transfer rates and low diffusion...
New data are presented that provide evidence for the onset of extensional deformation in the Northwestern Basin and Range within 1 million years after the eruption of the Steens Basalt at 16.5 Ma. New geologic mapping (1:24,000), stratigraphic sections, and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of the Crane Basin rocks provide a control...
The extent to which thermoacoustic data determines the acoustic properties of an object was studied. In the case of one dimensional thermoacoustic imaging it was shown that constant acoustic profiles are uniquely specified from measurements. For a radial thermoacoustic problem we have shown that if the acoustic source is radial...
In the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for setting annual dose limits. For cases of hot particle contamination these limits are set at depths in skin of 7 mg/cm², 300 mg/cm², and 1000 mg/cm². However, at such shallow depths, the lack of charged particle equilibrium (CPE) precludes...
This study explores the use of predictive mapping techniques in developing Landtype Association (LTA) maps for use in natural resource management. These maps are produced for the USDA Forest Service on a regional basis at a 1:100,000 scale. The goal of this study is to develop and test a method...
This thesis is an exploration of literary representation of professors, specificially in Willa Cather's The Professor's House and Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin. I explicate the political unconscious of these texts by teasing out the tensions and ironies stemming from the conflict between the radical political consequences of the titular characters' scholarship...
To better understand the impact of land use on stream nutrient export, a synoptic sampling of 57 sub-basins within the Willamette River basin was conducted during winter baseflow conditions (February 2009). I assessed whether stream dissolved organic carbon (DOC), NO₃⁻ and Cl⁻ and specific ultra-violet absorbance (SUVA) values were correlated...
Engineering students spend a significant amount of their undergraduate careers focused on technical theory and practice. This intensive student prepares them for their technical challenges in the future. This training is so intense that often the more 'soft skills' such as communication, leadership, design, and troubleshooting are left out or...
Phagotrophic protists are major consumers of microbial biomass in aquatic ecosystems. However, biochemical mechanisms underlying prey recognition and phagocytosis by protists are not well understood. We investigated the potential roles of cell signaling mechanisms in chemosensory response to prey, and in capture of prey cells, by a marine ciliate (Uronema...
This thesis describes the transport properties observed in thermally treated graphite oxide (GO), which holds promise as an economical route to obtaining graphene. Graphene is a material consisting of a single atomic plane of carbon atoms and was first isolated as recently as 2004. Several isolation techniques have been investigated,...
Poster presented at: Session VI: Infrastructure: Posters on building and equipment, management and technology. Sunday, June 27, 2010. 29th Annual ALA Poster Sessions. The American Library Association 2010 Annual Conference. Washington, DC.
This presentation about the Oregon Spatial Data Library (OSDL) (http://spatialdata.oregonexplorer.info/) was delivered to the Western Association of Map Libraries in March 2010. The OSDL provides convenient ways to find, access, and share geospatial data and was developed in partnership with the Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS). The Oregon Spatial...
Regression analysis was used to examine the effect of a change in agricultural prices on land use and conservation. The planted acreage for each of three crops – corn, soybeans, and spring wheat – was regressed on the expected prices of the three crops,
the input prices, and past land...
Locating archaeological sites that predate the arrival of modern sea level has been difficult along the Oregon coast. This is in part believed to be the result of geologic processes that have influenced the preservation, distribution, and visibility of sites within the Oregon coastal landscape. Because of these changes, researchers...
This dissertation draws on ethnographic data and political ecological theory to analyze the experience of residents living in the IBM-Endicott Superfund site in Endicott, New York. Combining in-depth narratives and quantitative measures from a household survey, it highlights residents' perceptions of 1) environmental health risk, 2) risk mitigation, 3) deindustrialization...
Nickel or nickel alloys are common materials used in under bump metallization (UBM) in flip chip technology. Nickel is used because of its slow reaction rate with tin-based solder at
elevated temperatures. However, nickel is ferromagnetic at room temperature, hence cannot be easily deposited with magnetron sputtering. In this study,...
Monte-Carlo planning algorithms such as UCT make decisions at each step by
intelligently expanding a single search tree given the available time and then
selecting the best root action. Recent work has provided evidence that it can be
advantageous to instead construct an ensemble of search trees and make a...
Recent developments in computing technology have generated a demand for more streamlined and effective test systems. By replacing traditional in-chassis wired interconnects with a broadcast wireless system, fault detection and error susceptibility will drastically improve, input/output capabilities will expand, and routing complexity will decrease. Ultra-wideband impulse radio's (UWB-IR) characteristic multipath-immunity...
Continual growth of the world's energy consumption and the demand for long-term clean renewable energy resources has led to the development of ocean-based wave energy technologies. Emerging technologies are advancing potential solutions to the complex problem of energy generation in the harsh and corrosive ocean environment. To develop these technologies,...
In the Pacific Northwest, several species of rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) are under extreme conservation measures due to low population levels. Although currently at healthy population levels, one species of interest is the black rockfish (S. melanops), which has been shown to utilize estuarine habitat during its early life history stages....
Policy makers in the United States (US), following recommendations made by the international scientific community, have drafted national emissions reduction legislation in hopes of minimizing the harmful effects of global climate change. Included in this legislation is a national cap-and-trade system with provisions for carbon offsets. Specific provisions for forest...
Different specimen preparation methods such as moist tamping, dry funnel deposition, slurry deposition, dry air pluviation have been reported in the literature to investigate the undrained behavior of silty sands. Similarly, different means have been used to densify the soils prepared with such methods. However, the influence of the densification...
The field of nanotechnology has been rapidly developing new materials. These materials have become incorporated into consumer products and the environment after only minimal assessment of their effects on human health or the environment. The toxicity of these new nanomaterials remains unknown due to the unpredictable nature of the core...
Proanthocyanidins (PACs) containing A-type linkages, like those found in cranberry, have been implicated as beneficial phenolic compounds in human health, but much research is still required to better understand their activity fully. One major impediment to progress has been the existence of effective analytical methods for A-type PAC quantification. This...
Currently, the temporal arc distribution across the ingot during the vacuum arc remelting (VAR) process is not a known or monitored parameter. It is has previously been shown that arcs can spatially constrict during VAR, and this constriction can lead to undesired defects in the material. Additionally, correct accounting for...
American Indians and Alaska Natives have disproportionately high rates of diabetes, and it is not known if perceived medical discrimination is associated with diabetes health measures and poorer health for this population. This study examined the
effect of perceived medical discrimination (PMD) in American Indian women on health care decisions,...
Qualitative data analysis (QDA) is a time consuming and, potentially unreliable research activity. In qualitative research, a number of tasks must be repeated for every new research case, even if each case is closely related or is in the same area of study.
Existing QDA applications provide users with a...
Instability and turbulence in sheared, salt-fingering favorable stratification are studied
using three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNS). Salt-fingering favorable
stratification is gravitationally stable, because the unstable vertical gradient of salinity
is stabilized by temperature (warm, salty over cool, fresh water-masses). Salt-fingering
instability can occur at the interface of these different water-masses....
Sagebrush steppe ecosystems in the Great Basin have become increasingly threatened by the proliferation of cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.), an invasive annual grass. Diverse sagebrush and perennial bunchgrass landscapes can be converted to homogenous cheatgrass grasslands mainly through the effects of fire. Although the consequences of this conversion are well...
This research explores and aligns a postmodern method in line with a theoretical lens of "strategic political queer/feminism" to understand the construction and positioning of the issue/ problem of same-sex marriage. The method takes shape through a theoretical framework that leads to a political maneuver opening access to the rights...
This paper empirically examines the effects of population aging on international trade using a cross-country panel data set for a select group of 22 OECD countries. Other recent studies have examined the effects of population age on other economic variables such as growth, savings, and investment but none till now...
The leaf surface is a stark environment for bacterial colonists with limited
availability of nutrients, water and protected niches. Despite these limitations, a
plethora of bacteria appear to have adapted ways to survive and flourish on leaf
surfaces. One mechanism of survival is the formation of biofilms. Biofilms are a...
As designer it is important to understand the needs and wants of the
consumer. In sportswear design it is particularly important to know what
consumers think they want and what are the physical movements needs which
the apparel must meet. This study was developed to provide the researcher with
a...
Novel fluidic devices that utilize an array of microchannels to achieve their designed purpose are discussed. Examples of devices include: fuel reforming using Microreactors, chip cooling using microchannel heat sinks, and microchannel devices used for biological applications. The devices that have directly contributed to this research include: a microchannel water...
The Wood River Basin lies upstream of Upper Klamath Lake, the main reservoir of the USBR Klamath Irrigation Project that provides irrigation water to 210,000 acres of downstream land. Water allocation became a contentious issue in 2001 when drought led to curtailment of irrigation deliveries to the Klamath Irrigation Project...
After an unusually high incidence of Fusarium canker was observed in commercial hop fields of the Pacific Northwest, field surveys were conducted and revealed that canker incidence ranged from 20 to 60% of bines sampled in six commercial fields, as well as wide-spread Hop stunt viroid infection in these six...
Increased efficiency of household energy-using appliances effectively lowers the price of the services these devices provide. Basic consumer theory predicts that ceteris paribus, these lower prices will increase usage, thus making the effect on total energy demand ambiguous. In the literature, this phenomenon
has been called the rebound effect. In...
Over the past few decades, tourism and recreation activities have increased in tropical marine settings, and studies have examined social and ecological impacts of these activities. Some studies have examined social impacts such as encounters, crowding, and encounter norms or standards that individuals use to evaluate encounters with others as...
Novelist Toni Morrison is well-known for using the concept she calls rememory, or the process of actively revisiting and reconstructing a cultural past. Many critics agree that Morrison uses rememory in a strategic way, so that it provides
sturdy framework for a larger discussion of issues of race, class, and...
Athletic workout clothing is designed to help the wearer stay comfortable, cool,
and dry. There are several different styles of athletic apparel available at retailers and each individual has a preference as to what is comfortable for him or her. Comfort of clothing has traditionally been related to the fabric...
Olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) present an interesting case study of the conservation of wildlife species that aggregate in high densities and have served as resources for human consumption. Ridleys exhibit synchronized mass-nesting behavior,
during events called "arribadas," where thousands of females lay eggs together in a small area...
Customer requirements and engineering specifications will influence the direction of the design in any product, so it is crucial to make the requirements as stable as possible so quality designs can be produced on time within a budget. It would be optimal for requirements and specifications to remain constant but...
While there are many ways to evaluate a user interface design, the user's mental workload and situation awareness (SA) are particularly important considerations in the supervisory control of safety-critical systems. Typically, operators of these systems must monitor high-volume, time-sensitive status information. Interface design for this domain can be challenging and...
Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic bacteria capable of producing toxins, including complex cyclic peptides called microcystins. Hazardous cyanobacterial blooms are an emerging public health concern and are monitored throughout Oregon in various recreational and drinking water bodies. Oregon has been proactive and responsive to the problems associated with toxic cyanobacterial blooms, but...
With increasing transistor operating frequencies, interconnects and passive devices are becoming performance limiters in integrated circuit (IC) designs. To combat this, the interconnect layers above the active silicon are trending toward low-κ dielectrics and Cu metallization. The use of these new materials has popularized chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) to planarize...
Research and Innovative Services (OSU Libraries) Investigation Report [2010-01].
The purpose of this project report is to provide Associate University Librarian (AUL) Jennifer Nutefall and the newly formed Assessment Project Team with a baseline of information about the current state of data gathering within OSU Libraries (OSUL). In March 2010,...
Re-establishing connectivity is a primary restoration activity for enhancing the
recovery of migratory fishes, but actions are often limited by lack of funds and
understanding of the benefits of individual projects. The objective of this study was to
develop a Bayesian Network (BN) to assess priorities for restoration of aquatic...
Over the last few decades, the methods and tools through which humans collaborate, share knowledge and generally communicate have been advancing at a rapid pace. Thanks mostly to advances in broadband internet, cheap data storage and fast microprocessors, humans now have the ability to work together in ways that even...
One of the key challenges in downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems is the mitigation of the multi-access interference when different users share the same subcarriers. In this work, the block diagonalization (BD) algorithm for inter-user interference pre-cancelation is extended to MIMO-OFDM systems. However, in...
Proper use of vegetation in streambank bioengineering practices requires a comprehensive understanding of the influence of vegetation density on streambank hydraulics. A series of studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between independent variables vegetation density, bank angle, and discharge and dependent variables channel velocity, resistance, turbulence, and shear stress....
The nuclear reaction ¹⁰⁰Mo(¹²⁴Sn,xn)[superscript 224-x]U has been carried out at E[subscript cot] of 578 MeV and 634 MeV using the facilities and equipment at the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility (HRIBF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in order to initiate the search for the inverse fission of uranium. Reference...
Asymmetric tensor fields are useful for understanding fluid flow and solid deformation. They present new challenges, however, for traditional tensor field visualization techniques such as hyperstreamline placement and glyph packing. This is because the physical behavior of tensors inside real domains where eigenvalues are real is fundamentally different from the...
The following question guided this research: How do female readers understand the romantic content of Cosmopolitan and/or Glamour magazines, and how do they perceive connections between their readership of this content and their personal ideas and behaviors regarding romantic relationships? This study involved a series of responsive interviews in which...
3D object recognition is a very difficult and important problem in computer vision, arising in a wide range of applications. Typically in 3D object recognition, interest points are extracted from images and then matched. A shortcoming of this approach is that points only carry local visual information. Therefore, there
could...
This report is laid out as a progressive exploration of how the economics of ES production interacts with finance, broadly construed, in actual credit transactions. The inquiry proceeds in several steps. First, the economics of ecosystem services production is explored to provide critical context for potential financing approaches. This section...
Ecosystem services markets represent potential revenue streams for small- and medium-scale rural agricultural and forest producers, many of whom have faced significant economic downturns over the past several decades. Demand for ecosystem services (ES) in the form of investments by public agencies, mitigation funds from regulated entities, and voluntary payments...
This white paper gives an overview of the software applications used by university presses to publish digital monographs. In addition, we will look at routes taken by university presses to move from all print to some e-publishing and list the supplemental online content that is typically offered for a fee.
This dissertation consists of three essays on meta-analysis, benefit transfer and recreation use valuation. The first two essays were based on the sportsfishing valuation literature in the US and Canada while the third essay was based on a study
site in the Philippines and selected study sites from the US....
Social-ecological resilience theory is part of a new paradigm for understanding and managing complex coupled human-ecological systems. The theory aims to inform explorations of a system’s ability to withstand disturbance while maintaining its critical functions. Adaptive co-management has been proposed as a governance mechanism that can enhance resiliency by combining...
Mechanisms of motor control and function are interesting to those from the medical, athletic training and sports performance professions primarily during the development of conditioning and rehabilitation programs. The aim of this study was to assess spinal control mechanisms in two groups of explosively trained, female athletes from a NCAA...
In this dissertation, I present electronic spectra of a few polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): tetracene, pentacene, pyrene, benzo[g,h,i]perylene and benzo[a]pyrene using resonantly enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) and zero kinetic energy (ZEKE) photoelectron spectroscopy. The work of tetracene and pentacene also combine a laser desorption source with a ZEKE spectrometer, demonstrating...
Fort Yamhill, located in the eastern foothills of the Oregon Coast Range near modern day Grand Ronde, Oregon, was a U.S. Army post established in March 1856 as part of a three fort system to guard the newly established Coast Reservation and to provide a Union presence in the state...
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate Oregon public high school history teacher perspectives concerning standards-based reform initiatives springing from the No Child Left Behind legislation. The central question addressed in this study is: At what level has Standards-Based Education reform initiatives impacted Oregon high school history instruction and...
Behavioral modeling is increasingly an imperative component of system design as the systems under construction become more and more complex. Without behavioral modeling available to the modern designer, design and verification of these systems would be much more laborious. Additionally, with the increasing computational power of today's modeling and simulation...
The use of medical diagnostic imaging involving ionizing radiation has drastically increased in recent years causing concern about possible long term consequences such as the induction of cancer. Recognizing this recent trend, the
Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the Nebraska Medical Center commissioned this study in order to determine effective...
The diffusion of divalent nickel (Ni²⁺) from wet silica gels was investigated.
Silica gel is gaining interest as an encapsulation matrix for biological components.
The transport of biologically relevant species within the gel is determined by the
structural characteristics of the gel, which are in turn governed by synthesis
parameters....
To compete with other building materials, the wood products industry must
find a way to increase value and lower costs. Wood stiffness is important for most
wood uses. Value can be increased and costs can be lowered by sorting logs for
stiffness in the woods using acoustic devices mounted on...
Anne Frances Wysocki, a scholar in the field of new media and composition studies, has published many articles, book chapters, a textbook, and is a major contributor to a multi-authored collection titled Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. This thesis considers the five openings...
The television show South Park, created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is viewed by millions of people each week, regularly addresses a number of controversial issues and plays a major role in contemporary popular culture. Current academic research acknowledges Parker and Stone's willingness to attack the dominant views surrounding...
In text classification, labeling features is often less time consuming than labeling entire documents. In situations where very little labeled training data is available, feature relevance feedback has the potential to dramatically increase classification performance. We review previous work on incorporating feature relevance feedback in the form of labeled features...
Tidal marshlands in the upper estuary ecotone provide essential habitat for
juvenile salmonids. In this environment, salmonids grow rapidly and acclimate to
saltwater. Worldwide, tidal marshes have been diked and drained to provide
agricultural and residential land. Tide gates are one-way doors integrated into
dike systems that prevent saltwater flooding...
The number of people traveling to other countries to volunteer for conservation or humanitarian projects has increased dramatically in the past three decades. Despite substantial interest in volunteer tourism, few researchers have examined: (a) the role of promotional material (e.g., brochures, internet websites) in motivating volunteers; (b) factors that attract...
This dissertation explores algorithms for learning ranking functions to efficiently solve search problems, with application to automated planning. Specifically, we consider the frameworks of beam search, greedy search, and randomized search, which all aim to maintain tractability at the cost of not guaranteeing completeness nor optimality. Our learning objective for...