Modern day digital systems employ frequency
synthesizers to provide a common clock to the system.
They are undergoing large scale integration due to which, mitigation
of the effect of noise on power supply has become a major design consideration
in clocking circuits. Rapid scaling of CMOS technology mandates the
design...
Azaspiracid has generated an enormous amount of scientific interest in the fourteen years since its initial discovery. The structure contains a 6,5,6 bis-spiroketal, a [3.3.1] bicyclic ketal and a 6,5-spiroaminal linkage as key moieties. With 9 rings, 20 stereocenters and three alkenes, the azaspiracid immediately attracted the interest of the...
This dissertation presents an incremental analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with digital digital-to-analog converter (DAC) mismatch correction. A theoretical time-domain analysis technique was developed to predict the noise performance of the incremental ADC, and a new optimization technique was proposed to minimize the output noise.
In the calibration mode, the incremental ADC...
A proposed state-and-transition model (STM) for the Deep Sand Savannah ecological site in central New Mexico was developed using historical data and expert knowledge. This STM was tested utilizing data from short and long term one-seed juniper (Juniperus monosperma (Engelm.) Sarg.) control experiments initiated in 1981 and 1985. Utilizing data...
A relatively new model of error control is the limited magnitude error over high radix channels. In this error model, the error magnitude does not exceed a certain limit known beforehand. In this dissertation, we study systematic error control codes for common channels under the assumption that the maximum error...
The development of micro total analysis systems (µTAS), also called “lab-on-a-chip”, or microfluidic analysis systems, is presented in this dissertation. Various research areas, covering subjects from magnetic particles synthesis to novel microchip fabrication techniques, are explored to develop a lab-on-a-chip system capable of performing magnetic bead-based bioassays. These devices are...
Little, if any, quantifications have been made on the contribution of the vertebral column during jumping in quadrupedal mammals. Previous studies of jumpers have focused on the morphological and physiological specializations of the hindlimbs. In this study, such specialization was measured during the supramaximal jumps of the Pacific jumping mouse...
Depleted species of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) from the Northeast Pacific experience high discard mortality due to "barotrauma," induced from the rapid change in pressure during capture. Research suggests rockfish have the potential to survive barotrauma if immediately recompressed, but the potential for long-term recovery is unknown. In this project, we...
Transient liquid-phase diffusion brazing is used in precision, hermetic joining applications as a replacement for diffusion bonding to reduce cycle times, reduce bonding pressure and improve yields. Studies showed that the interlayer used in diffusion brazing can be detrimental due to the use of melting point depressants (MPDs). The goal...
Met is a prognostic indicator of colorectal cancer patient survival. Therapies that target Met may therefore have beneficial outcomes in the clinic. Recently, EGCG was reported to suppress Met activation, although the mechanisms were not elucidated. HCT116 and HT29 human colon cancer cells were used to examine the relationships between...
The number of endangered species is rapidly increasing while paucity of adequate information and resources delays establishment of conservation actions. The IUCN’s listing system is insufficient to determine conservation priorities and many species lack information even to be evaluated (i.e., “data deficient”). Here I proposed and tested the Rapid Endangered...
This dissertation outlines two approaches for improving the efficiency and reducing the cost of photovoltaic energy generation. First, the structures of known binary copper and iron compounds are used to choose the promising compositions Fe₂XS₄ (X = Si, Ge), Cu₃TaQ₄ (Q = Se, Te), and BaCuQ'F (Q' = S, Se,...
This dissertation presents a research series demonstrating the use of pharmacokinetic modeling and simulations as tools to assess drug concentration and disposition in patient populations. For drugs requiring therapeutic drug monitoring, these tools are necessary to ensure patients are receiving a safe and effective dose of medication to address their...
Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors have the potential to de-repress epigenetically silenced genes in cancer cells, leading to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Dietary HDAC inhibitors derived from natural phytochemicals are promising anticancer agents. In this thesis, metabolites from natural organosulfur and organoselenium compounds, i.e. allyl mercaptan (AM), β-methylselenopyruvate (MSP) and...
One of the most common practices regarding estimation of forest attributes is
the partitioning of large forested subpopulations into smaller areas of interest to
coincide with specific objectives of present and future forest management. New
estimators are needed to improve estimation of selected forest attributes in small areas
where the...
This dissertation describes the application and development of molecular tools that have great potential for use in studying variation in strawberry germplasm. The first study evaluated 91 microsatellite (simple sequence repeat, SSR) markers for transferability in 22 Fragaria species and their utility in fingerprinting octoploid strawberries. Out of the transferable...
Dramatic and ongoing changes pervading the Arctic and subarctic seas over
recent decades have motivated this effort to track and better understand hydrographic
variability using chemical tracers. Particular emphasis has been paid to differentiating
freshwater contributions to upper layers: namely Pacific water, meteoric water, and
sea-ice melt/formation.
Data collected in...
The forest alpine tundra ecotone (FTE, also known as alpine treeline or subalpine parkland), is a conspicuous feature of mountain landscapes throughout the world. Climate change-driven increases in temperature are believed to result in FTE movement and tree invasion of subalpine meadows, which have been documented throughout the Northern Hemisphere...
Nonindigenous species are a major threat to the ecological integrity and biodiversity of marine and estuarine ecosystems. To become a successful invader, species must pass through four phases: (1) survive transport, (2) survive release, (3) establish a population, and (4) expand their range. To better understand these processes, an integrated...
Currently, the only anthrax vaccine licensed for human use in the United States is the Anthrax-vaccine-absorbed (AVA or Biothrax®). AVA suffers from several drawbacks, including a complicated and lengthy dosing schedule that requires six initial injections administered over eighteen months, followed by annual boosters. Therefore, a new generation anthrax vaccine...
Since the 1980s, industrial forest restructuring has resulted in the divestment of industrial timberlands across the U.S. Emerging tenures have benefited from the divestment, including conservation-based tenures that manage for multiple objectives such as restoration, recreation access, and forest and habitat contiguity. Deschutes and Klamath Counties, Oregon, have three proposed...
Quantum mechanics provides a conventional theory of scattering that is limited in
at least two ways: it focuses exclusively on the asymptotic regime and, in a more general
sense characteristic of all quantum descriptions, provides no concrete account of individual
particle evolution in spacetime. This is particularly true during the...
The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of first-generation persons of color attending and persisting at a community technical college. Students of color continue to be an increasing population in our higher education system. Many of these persons of color are choosing to attend two-year institutions. A...
Ceratomyxa shasta is a myxozoan parasite that infects salmonid fishes causing the disease ceratomyxosis that is characterized by severe hemorrhage and necrosis of the intestine and death of the fish host. Ceratomyxa shasta is endemic to the Pacific Northwestern United States and Canada, where epizootics are reported for both wild...
With women comprising nearly 50% of HIV/AIDS infections globally, the development of new woman-initiated HIV prevention methods has become a public health imperative. To date, the female condom and the diaphragm are the only woman-initiated prevention methods available on the consumer market. Recent research has focused on two HIV/AIDS prevention...
Kenyan women exhibit a pattern of unequal access and participation to education, particularly Science, Mathematics and Technology (SMT) subjects and careers. This is the result of documented challenges that include cultural attitudes that overburden girls with chores to the detriment of their school work, and a preference by parents to...
More women than ever before survive breast cancer with 89% of those diagnosed becoming survivors (NCI, 2008). However, according to the National Cancer Institute (2005) some groups of women bear a greater burden of difficulty in survivorship. Sexual minority women (SMW), or women who partner with other women in romantic...
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are important in the teaching of undergraduate students (Golde & Dore, 2001). However, they are often poorly prepared for teaching (Luft, Kurdziel, Roehrig, & Turner, 2004). This dissertation addresses teaching effectiveness in three related manuscripts:
1. A position paper...
Dense hyphal mats formed by ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi are prominent features in Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) forest soils and have been estimated to cover up to 40% of the forest floor in some stands. Although previous studies have examined various aspects of EcM fungi, little is known about their associated microbial...
The purpose of the study was to investigate practical guidelines based on empirical evidence for effective website design, including both home page and product pages. This research consists of two consecutive empirical studies. Study 1 was one factor (home page design: image- vs. text-oriented home page) between-subjects design with two...
In wireless sensor network applications, low-power operation of the wireless receiver is critical. To address this need an ultra-low power Binary Frequency Shift Keying (BFSK) receiver using the super-regenerative architecture is developed.
A prototype receiver is built and tested for operation in the 900 MHz ISM band. Lab measurements show...
Error correction codes (ECCs) have been widely used in communication systems and storage devices. Nowadays, the rapid development of integrated circuit technologies makes feasible the implementation of powerful ECCs such as turbo code and low-density parity-check (LDPC) code. However, these high-performance codes require complex decoding algorithms, resulting in large hardware...
BaCuChF (Ch = S, Se, Te) materials are chalcogen-based transparent conductors with wide optical band gaps (2.9 – 3.5 eV) and a high concentration of free holes (10¹⁸ – 10²⁰ cm⁻³) caused by the presence of copper vacancies. Chalcogen vacancies compensate copper vacancies in these materials, setting the Fermi level...
This dissertation focuses on the predator-prey relationship between two species of avian predators, Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia) and double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus), and one of their important prey types, juvenile salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.), in the Columbia River estuary of Oregon and Washington states during the period 1998 – 2007. I...
Probability-based reliability methods have placed an increased emphasis on realistic simulation of structural behavior in bridge engineering. Uncertainty is present in every aspect of structural analysis. Aleatory uncertainties in the loading and load-carrying capacities, and epistemic uncertainties in mathematical idealization of bridge systems are the major contributors to uncertain structural...
Better Bones and Balance (BBB) is a community-based exercise program to improve bone health and reduce fall risk among older adults. Prior research has shown that when the program is delivered by researchers under controlled conditions, participants improved strength and balance, and maintained bone mineral density (BMD) at the hip....
New acceptor-type graphite intercalation compounds (GICs) containing perfluoroalkyl anions have been synthesized by using both chemical and electrochemical methods and characterized by elemental and thermogravimetric analyses. Investigation into these graphite intercalation compounds can provide novel materials and a detailed understanding of their properties.
GICs of composition Cx[FB(C₂F₅)₃]·δF are prepared for...
The following three essays explore the use of the directional output distance function (Chambers et al., 1996), an economic model originally developed to measure efficiency and productivity for multi-input and multi-output production processes, to assess performance for multi-attributed environmental processes.
The first essay illustrates the use of the directional output...
In this dissertation, I posited the need to understand how an invented community (the Society for Creative Anachronism) constructs symbolic meaning in material objects and value systems. Using ethnographic methods, I focused on the Knights and their regalia as this is the most widely accepted material symbolism. People go to...
In wood-based composites, the glue-line (interface) between wood-strands affects the stress transfer from one member to the next. The glue-line properties determine the rate of load transfer between phases and these properties depend on wood species, surface preparation, glue properties, glue penetration into wood cells, and moisture content of the...
Vertebrates communicate with one another and coordinate intraspecific reproduction by using a variety of sexually dimorphic signals, such as plumage, ornaments, sounds, and/or scents. These sexual dimorphisms are maintained by physiological factors, typically sex-specific hormones (though see Chapter 3 for an exception). The purpose of the research in this dissertation...
Variable-retention harvesting was proposed to reduce loss of biodiversity and ecosystem processes associated with late-seral Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) forests in the Pacific Northwest. The Demonstration of Ecosystem Management Options experiment was established to test this hypothesis. Analysis presents various challenges to drawing statistical inferences about treatment effects. This dissertation explored...
Peroxiredoxins (Prxs) are dominant peroxide-reducing enzymes with two important roles: they protect all organisms from oxidative damage induced by peroxides, and in eukaryotes, they participate in hydrogen peroxide signaling pathways. This dissertation presents studies aimed at the biophysical characterization of select Prxs and a Prx reductase to elucidate their structure-function...
For cell-like upper semicontinuous(usc) decompositions G of finite dimensional manifolds M, the decomposition space M/G turns out to be an ANR provided M/G is finite dimensional ([Dav07], page 129 ). Furthermore, if M/G is finite dimensional and has the
Disjoint Disks Property (DDP), then M/G is homeomorphic to M ([Dav07],...
The process of de-excitation of the actinides is a very important question in both pure and applied science. In this dissertation the process was studied using the neutrons emitted in coincidence with fission induced by the bombardment of ²³⁸U with 14.85 MeV deuterons. Neutrons can be emitted at multiple stages...
Cytoplasmic dynein is an ATP-dependent, microtubule-based molecular motor involved in the positioning and trafficking of cellular cargo. The cargo binding sub-domain of dynein contains the natively disordered intermediate chain (IC) and the homodimeric light chains (Tctex1, LC8 and LC7). The structure and stoichiometry of this complex, how the light chains...
Recent advances in wireless technologies have helped the proliferation of wireless devices, ranging from hand-held devices such as cellular phones to more powerful mobile computing platforms as such laptops [1]. Along with that, the end users’
applications running on these devices, ranging from text message to multimedia applications such as...
Limnanthes floccosa ssp. floccosa and L. floccosa ssp. grandiflora are two of five subspecies of Limnanthes floccosa endemic to vernal pools in southern Oregon and northern California. Three seasons of monitoring natural populations have quantified that L. floccosa ssp. grandiflora is always found growing sympatrically with L. floccosa ssp. floccosa...
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with a molecular weight (MW) of 302
and oxygenated-PAHs (OPAHs) have demonstrated toxicity beyond that of
frequently monitored and known carcinogenic PAHs. Airborne particulate matter
(PM) was characterized for MW 302 isomers to evaluate risk and air quality
indices and OPAHs in order to fill data...
This research details laboratory assessment of bacterial hydrophobicity, variations in bacterial adhesion properties with growth and extended starvation as well as extension of this assay to colloidal hydrophobicity measurement. Hydrophobicity is an integral component of surface interactions and has been studied extensively for its role in a number of engineering...
Distractions and interruptions are common occurrences in an operating room (OR), but little is known about their effects on surgical task performance. Based on human factors research, it was hypothesized that realistic distractions and interruptions in an OR would adversely impact surgical task performance. Because of the concern of patient...
The effects of a school-based social-emotional and character development program, Positive Action, on the developmental trajectory of character development was evaluated using data from three randomized trials. Results come from 1) 4-years of data from elementary children in 20 Hawai`i schools, 2) 3-years of data from elementary children in 14...
Malaria is the world’s most important parasitic infectious disease, and is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in many developing countries. In this dissertation I study the interaction of malaria and economic development at both the macro- and micro-economic levels.
In the first essay I examine the economic impact...
Multiple-input multiple-output wireless systems promise significant capacity gain
and/or diversity gain over single antenna systems. If channel state information (CSI)
is available at both the transmitter and the receiver, the performance can be further
improved. In this thesis, first, we study binary index feedback problem in beamforming
systems when the...
The conventional advection-dispersion equation cannot adequately describe all processes driving
solute transport in heterogeneous systems. This dissertation focuses on the individual influences
of both chemical (Chapter 2) and physical processes (Chapters 3 and 4) which affect
solute transport. In Chapter 2 we analyzed uranium transport in natural sediment using the...
The generation mechanism for downslope windstorms was shown to vary according to inversion height and strength using a series of numerical experiments. Strong low level inversions were dominated by interfacial waves on the inversion, while high level inversion and cases without an inversion were dominated by internal gravity wave (IGW)...
Small pelagic fish represent a critical trophic link between plankton and large predators in marine upwelling ecosystems such as the California Current System. Populations of these fish are highly variable over time and are characterized by extreme fluctuations in abundance, which have significant ecosystem impacts. The causes driving
this instability...
The purpose of the present study is to examine consumers' privacy concerns in the online shopping context. Drawing from Social Contract Theory, the present study proposed a structure equation model to examine how consumers' evaluations of online shopping experiences (perceived benefit, risk and fairness) and attitudes (trust, moods, and repurchase...
Crystals of an incongruent-melting compound, Ba₃MgSi₂O₈, were grown by the flux method and its structure was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction methods. Ba₃MgSi₂O₈ crystallizes in trigonal space group P-3[bar]m1 with a = 5.6123(3) Å, c = 7.2667(9) Å and Z = 1. Eu²⁺ ions prefer one crystallographic Ba site...
Transition metal oxides are an important class of materials for the wide variety optical, electrical, dielectric, magnetic, and thermal properties observed. Their unique structure-property relationships allow for property tuning and often provide insight into the fundamentals of chemistry. The work in this thesis was focused on the design, synthesis and...
Literature on classroom management asserts that the best discipline is preventive, with studies on teacher variables such as empathy or enforcement of consequences, as well as student variables such as peers reporting positive behaviors with group contingencies, among others. However, there is little in the research that specifically targets regular...
The effect of anthropogenic disturbance on river systems is gaining attention, and concerns about the state of freshwater natural resources are increasing globally, as are efforts to restore habitat that has been degraded by disturbance. In rivers, non-point source pollution affects the physical characteristics of the habitat and the endemic...
The intracellular mutualism between cnidarians and photosynthetic dinoflagellates (genus Symbiodinium) is responsible for the physical and trophic structure of diverse coral reef ecosystems. This relationship, based on nutrient exchange, allows for high productivity in tropical waters, which are generally nutrient-poor environments. Numerous environmental stressors currently threaten the health of corals,...
Numerous human conditions would be improved if therapies to encourage tissue regeneration were available. The goal of regenerative medicine is to encourage the body's intrinsic ability to repair and restore tissues lost by disease, injury or aging. While certain vertebrates have the inherent capacity to regenerate, mammals do not. To...
Since the Industrial Revolution, automated systems have increasingly become a part of everyday life. Automated systems range in scale and scope from simple assists to complete robotic replacements. Inexpensive integrated circuits, sensors and microprocessors have allowed automated systems to become smaller, cheaper and more prevalent. Identifying appropriate opportunities for automation,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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....
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....
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...
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...
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...
High speed and high resolution analog-to-digital converter is a key building block for broadband wireless communications, high definition video applications, medical images and so on. By leveraging the down scaling of the latest CMOS technology and the noise shaping properties, delta-sigma (ΔΣ) ADCs are able to achieve wide-band operation and...
Currently, the technologies used to separate lignocellulosic biomass into its component parts (cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) and enzymatically hydrolyze the cellulose to glucose for conversion to ethanol could be improved economically and in terms of efficiency. A major impediment to utilizing the biomass is the presence of residual lignin. The...
Variability in wood properties causes boards within a stack of lumber to
dry at different rates and reach different moisture content levels after drying is
completed. The consequence is that the boards will have properties that differ from
ones that were intended to be achieved by the drying process.
The...
Like other species interactions in ecological systems, host-pathogen interactions are influenced by environmental factors, landscape characteristics and the broader community context. My thesis explores the potential influences of food-web interactions (Chapter 2), climate change (Chapter 3), landscape structure and host movement patterns (Chapter 4), and the combined influences of local...
This dissertation presents research that investigated the experiences and
perceptions of Christian therapists who work with conservative Christian women who
experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). Despite the widespread occurrence of IPV,
therapists continue to face challenges in areas of training and supervision in working with
this type of trauma. In...
Biophysical, socioeconomic and geopolitical pressures from population growth and economic development are leading to an increase in tensions regarding the sharing of water within transboundary basins. Transboundary basins are surface rivers and groundwater resources that are shared among sovereign nations and autonomous regions. This dissertation focuses on surface water in...
Biological organisms, phenomena and strategies, herein referred to as biological systems, provide a rich set of analogies that can be used to inspire engineering innovation. Biologically-inspired, or biomimetic, designs are publicly viewed as creative and novel solutions to human problems. Moreover, some biomimetic designs have become so commonplace that it...
This dissertation focuses on the evolutionary forces of genetic drift and gene flow in frog populations. The balance of these two forces and the force of mutation largely determine the amount of neutral genetic variation within populations as well as the degree of genetic similarity among populations. The stochastic evolutionary...