Development of efficient methods for the destruction of solid wastes and recovery of valuable resources is needed to support long-duration manned missions in space. In particular, these technologies are required for deployment in hypogravity and microgravity environments, such as at the lunar or Martian surfaces. Gradient Magnetically Assisted Fluidized Bed...
Current research indicates that the expansion of
western juniper can inhibit soil water retention, storage
and prolonged releases from watersheds. This phenomenon
is of great importance in eastern Oregon, as western
juniper is encroaching into sagebrush/grass communities
with a correlated reduction in herbaceous ground cover,
resulting in reduced infiltration rates...
The increasing occurrence of aluminosilicate caused complications in krafi pulp mills can be attributed to the closing of purge points and the expanded use of contaminated feedstocks and recycled fiber sources. An active purge of aluminum and silicon from the chemical recovery cycle must be undertaken in order to maintain...
Understanding how populations within a species interact across various geographic and temporal scales is fundamental to developing appropriate conservation strategies. I examined the geographic variation in genetic and meristic characters of coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki clarki) based on
approximately 1,400 fish sampled from 54 populations spanning their distributional range...
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published their vision of active, problem-centered instruction with a goal of conceptual understanding in 1989. Fifteen years after these reforms were proposed the changes are reflected in school policy and elementary mathematics curriculum, but only limited change has actually occurred in classroom instruction....
Fluorinated alkyl substances, which can be persistent, toxic, and
bioaccumulative, have been quantitated in many densely populated and
remote regions, including in air, surface waters, groundwater, and biota;
however, little is known about their transport or behavior in the environment.
Wastewater effluent is one of the principal routes for introducing...
Mathematics is permeated with language; it appears in the form of new words and
some old words with new meanings. There are new symbols to be able to read and
consume; much information is presented in tabular or graphic form, and finally the
language in a mathematics class has its...
The purpose of this research was to develop and test a radiation detector to perform beta dosimetry and spectroscopy. The detector utilizes plastic scintillator volumes to produce scintillation light in proportion to the amount of energy deposited in them, and a large-area avalanche photodiode to convert the light to electrical...
Certain applications have recently appeared in industry where a traditional bar code printed on a label will not survive because the item to be tracked has to be exposed to harsh environments. Laser direct-part marking is a manufacturing process used to create permanent marks on a substrate that could help...
Two studies investigated the characteristics of high-risk Hispanic parents with young children who were enrolled in a primary prevention home visitation program targeting first birth families. In the first study, more and less acculturated high-risk Hispanic families were compared to high-risk non-Hispanic White families on differences in demographic characteristics, risk...
The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions of the first year experience of teaching secondary agriculture and to explore the relationships between these perceptions, the characteristics of beginning agriculture teachers, and the types of support provided to beginning teachers. An additional focus of the study was to...
Objectives: To identify the perceptions of community hospital physicians on computerized physician order entry. Design: Multi-method approach consisting of a mail survey of 659 community hospital physicians with active admitting privileges at three PeaceHealth, Inc., along with follow-up personal interviews with stratified random selection from completed survey. Measurements: Perceptions were...
This dissertation describes studies of isoprenoid biosynthesis in the
phytoflagellate Euglena gracilis. Elucidation of a novel isoprerioid pathway, the 2-Cmethyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate (MEP) pathway, in addition to the generally known
mevalonate (MVA) pathway, led to extensive exploration of the distribution of both pathways in a variety of organisms. To date, photosynthetic eukaryotes...
The discovery of the methylerythritol phosphate pathway (the MEP pathway) as an alternate pathway for isoprenoid biosynthesis in some organisms including most bacteria, malarial parasites and plants, but not in animals, has stimulated extensive studies in this area. Research has revealed the potential of finding novel antibacterials, antimalarial drugs, and...
Plant form is a compromise between resource gathering, reproduction and
the tolerance to physical demands of the abiotic and biotic environment. In
an agricultural field in addition to the natural factors causing stress, humans
also introduce physical and mechanical stresses, and chemical pesticides
into the environment. Many of these factors...
Studies toward the total synthesis of a highly potent cytotoxic marine natural product, phorboxazole A, were conducted and resulted in a route to an advanced intermediate, C4-C32, for this purpose. A key feature of our approach is the stereoselective synthesis of two cis-2,6-disubstituted tetrahydropyrans present in the macrolide portion of...
This dissertation contains three essays on nonprametric and semiparametric regression mod-
In the first essay, we propose an estimation procedure for value at risk (VaR) and expected
shortfall (TailVaR.) for conditional distributions of a time series of returns on a financial asset.
Our approach combines a local polynomial estimator of...
Some positive-strand RNA plant viruses possess a transfer RNA-like structure (TLS) at the 3'-terminus of their genomic RNAs. The closest mimicry to tRNA is exhibited by the valylatable TLSs from tymoviruses and furo-like viruses, which are able to interact with key cellular tRNA enzymes: [CTP, ATP]:tRNA nucleotidyltransferase (CCA NTase), valyl-tRNA...
To determine if 6 weeks prior supplementation with vitamins E and C
could alleviate exercise-induced DNA damage, prevent lipid peroxidation and
inflammation, slow the rate of vitamin E utilization and/or attenuate muscle
damage, 22 subjects (11 females: 11 males) were studied during a 50 km (32
mile) ultramarathon. Subjects were...
Physical distribution is one of the key functions in logistics systems, involving the flow of products from manufacturing plants or distribution centers through the network of transportation to consumers. The function is very costly, especially for the distribution industries. During the past decades, the significance of physical distribution has increased...