Frozen storage of horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus) is limited by lipid damage causing sensory quality losses. This work deals with changes in functional and sensory properties during frozen storage of horse mackerel treated by high hydrostatic pressure processing (HPP) prior to freezing. Three levels of pressure (150, 300, and 450...
Epitaxy of III-V semiconductors on Si gets recent interest for next generation system on
heterogeneous chip on wafer. The understanding of band offset is thus necessary for describing
the charge transport phenomenon in these heterojunctions. In this work, x-ray photoemission
spectroscopy has been used to determine the band offsets in...
We examined the multivariate life-history trajectories of age 0 and age 1 female Gambusia affinis to determine relative effects of age-based and environment-based cues on reproductive investment. Age 0 females decreased reproductive investment prior to the onset of fall and winter months, while age 1 females increased reproductive investment as...
In a set of streamside mesocosms, stream ecosystem respiration (ER) increased with biofilm biomass and flow heterogeneity (turbulence) generated by impermeable bed forms, even though those bed forms had no hyporheic exchange. Two streamside flumes with gravel beds (single layer of gravel) were operated in parallel. The first flume had...
The deep sea is often viewed as a vast, dark, remote,
and inhospitable environment, yet the deep ocean and
seafloor are crucial to our lives through the services that
they provide. Our understanding of how the deep sea functions
remains limited, but when treated synoptically, a diversity
of supporting, provisioning,...
Conventional bioeconomic analyses focus on the economically optimal exploitation of the fish resources by maximizing the resource rent subject to a resource restriction. This paper expands this type of analysis by addressing the fishing activity's impact on the ecosystem biologically as well as economically. A dynamic bioeconomic model is used...
Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge (HMNAR) established in 1936, is 101,000 ha in area. The refuge was grazed by domestic livestock from the 1870s until their exclusion in 1990. Just prior to removal of livestock, photopoints were taken at various riparian and wetland locations throughout the refuge to document riparian...
Fish production is a source of livelihood for millions of Nigerians both as primary and secondary income provider. The study examined the economics of fish harvesting in Yola, Nigeria with the objectives of examining the socioeconomic status of the fishers, determining the gross margin of fish harvesting , examining the...
Abalone, Haliotis asinina, is a high value shellfish for export trade that provide cash income to fishing households in some coastal communities in the Philippines. Stock enhancement is one of the fisheries management strategies that enable recovery of overfished stocks through release of juveniles and consequent stock increase through recruitment....
Many ITQ fisheries are subject to an upper limit or cap on ITQ-holdings by individual companies. The economic rationale for these caps seems to be to reduce the opportunities for monopolistic behaviour by the companies. A possible social cost of the caps is that limiting company size in fisheries, especially...
Poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a renewable, biodegradable biopolymer that has
shown great promise to offset the use of hydrocarbon-derived plastics. The genes
encoding the bacterial PHB production pathway have been engineered into several
higher order plant species providing an opportunity to produce PHB as a
co-product on an industrial, agricultural scale....
This paper will present some preliminary result from a study of post-harvest losses in the Sri Lanka tuna value chain. Fish losses refer to the decrease in edible fish mass throughout the part of value chain that specifically leads to edible food for human consumption. Sri Lanka is a unique...
Research in warm-climate biomes has shown that invasion by symbiotic dinitrogen (N₂)-fixing plants can transform ecosystems in ways analogous to the transformations observed as a consequence of anthropogenic, atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition: declines in biodiversity, soil acidification, and alterations to carbon and nutrient cycling, including increased N losses through nitrate...
Historical ecology is becoming an important focus in conservation biology and offers a promising tool to help guide ecosystem management.
Here, we integrate data from multiple disciplines to illuminate the past, present, and future of biodiversity on California’s Channel Islands, an
archipelago that has undergone a wide range of land-use...
Reproductive tactics and migratory strategies in Pacific and Atlantic salmonines are inextricably linked through the effects of migration (or lack thereof) on age and size at maturity. In this review, we focus on the ecological and evolutionary patterns of freshwater maturation in salmonines, a key process resulting in the diversification...
Dr. Eckard V. Toy, Jr., grew up in the Pacific Northwest and earned his Ph.D. in American history at the University of Oregon. Beginning with his 1959 Master’s thesis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Oregon: Its Charter and Program,” the Klan and related topics were a primary focus of his...
A radio frequency-free electromagnetostatic (EMS) cell devised for electron-capture dissociation
(ECD) of ions has been retrofitted into the collision-induced dissociation (CID) section of a triple
quadrupole mass spectrometer to enable recording of ECD product-ion mass spectra and
simultaneous recording of ECD-CID product-ion mass spectra. This modified instrument can be used...
The 158-year-old Commanding Officer's House at Fort Hoskins is one of only two such structures in Oregon representing the pre-Civil War era on the Western Frontier. From 1856-1861, it embodies a link in history between the prevailing ideology of western expansion and replication of Eastern cultural values into the frontier...
Juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) exhibit an array of life history tactics in Oregon's Willamette River Basin, yet we do not know to what extent it is driven by phenotypic plasticity or whether it is predetermined and how conditions in the early rearing environment may affect phenotype expression. We have...
Several evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) of Columbia River basin Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha and Coho Salmon O. kisutch are listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Yet little is known about the spatial and temporal distributions of these ESUs immediately following ocean entry, when year-class success...
In the past 100 years since the birth of fisheries oceanography, research on the early life history of fishes, particularly the larval stage, has been extensive, and much progress has been made in identifying the mechanisms by which factors such as feeding success, predation, or dispersal can influence larval survival....
Trees from temperate latitudes transition between growth and dormancy to survive dehydration and freezing stress during winter months. We employed activation tagging to isolate a dominant mutation affecting release from dormancy, and identified the corresponding gene EARLY BUD-BREAK 1 (EBB1). We demonstrate through positioning of the tag, expression analysis, and...
A growing body of research suggests that behavioral self-regulation skills are critical for early
school success. However, few studies have explored the links between self-regulation and
academic achievement among young children in Europe. This study examined the contribution of
behavioral self-regulation to academic achievement gains among young children in France,...
Early adulthood is a time of transition when large segments of the population embrace new roles and show decreases in behaviors and problems thought to underlie suicide risk. Still, other segments show emergent or worsening psychopathology per-haps exacerbated by age-related disconnection from prior relational and institutional supports. Suicide prevention efforts...
Early Holocene summer warmth drove dramatic Greenland ice sheet (GIS) retreat. Subsequent insolation-driven cooling caused GIS margin readvance to late Holocene maxima, from which ice margins are now retreating. We use ¹⁰Be surface exposure ages from four locations between 69.4°N and 61.2°N to date when in the early Holocene south...
Among the many issues associated with integrating e-books into library collections and services, the revision of existing workflows in cataloging units has received little attention. The experience designing new workflows for e-books at Oregon State University Libraries since 2008 is described in detail from the perspective of three different sources...
Because iso- and anisohydric species differ in stomatal regulation
of the rate and magnitude of fluctuations in shoot
water potential, they may be expected to show differences in
the plasticity of their shoot water relations components, but
explicit comparisons of this nature have rarely been made.
We subjected excised shoots...
The objective of this study is to propose control strategies for legged robots to walk and run naturally like humans and animals. To achieve this goal, we use the spring-mass model for the legged robots to be able to create the same dynamics in the leg as humans and animals....
New amplifier architectures are presented using non-traditional methods of biasing. Time-based dynamic biasing and signal-based dynamic biasing are discussed in the context of new architectures. This includes a new form of ring amplification with a dynamic deadzone, allowing for a structure whose coarse path does not consume static power.
This review briefly addresses what has been learned about resistance durability in recent years, as well as the questions that still remain. Molecular analyses of major gene interactions have potential to contribute to both breeding for resistance and improved understanding of virulence impacts on pathogen fitness. Though the molecular basis...
Tree-ring characteristics are commonly used to reconstruct climate variables, but divergence from the assumption of a single biophysical control may reduce the accuracy of these reconstructions. Here, we present data from bur oaks (Quercus macrocarpa Michx.) sampled within and beyond the current species bioclimatic envelope to identify the primary environmental...
Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) has a wide distribution in North America and is one of the tree species most widely distributed outside its natural range. The species has been introduced to Europe, New Zealand, South America, and elsewhere around the world. At present, Douglas-fir is an accepted and integral part of...
In this study an improved model of biomass and nutrient estimation of coastal Douglas-fir (Psuedotsuga menziesii) in the Pacific Northwest has been developed across a wide range of stand management regimes. This study quantifies and defines the type and intensity of biomass harvest and associated removal for actively managed stands...
Improper disposal of unused human and pet pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are an emerging public and watershed health threat around the world. Although some waste stream reduction programs such as PPCPs "take-back" exist, there is limited research in current programs on reducing the entry of PPCPs into the...
Cursorial ground birds are paragons of bipedal running that span a
500-fold mass range from quail to ostrich. Here we investigate the
task-level control priorities of cursorial birds by analysing how they
negotiate single-step obstacles that create a conflict between body
stability (attenuating deviations in body motion) and consistent leg...
Gender inequalities pervade aquaculture and fisheries. Participation is marked by strong gendered divisions of labour, and sector policy is gender-blind even though sociological and ethnographic studies show that policy impacts are highly gendered. In projects concerned with economic development, the main approach taken to address inequalities is to “empower women,”...
Patterns of social interaction influence how knowledge is generated, communicated,
and applied. Theories of social capital and organizational learning suggest that
interactions within disciplinary or functional groups foster communication of
knowledge, whereas interactions across groups foster generation of new knowledge.
We used social network analysis to examine patterns of social...
Liriomyza sativae and L. trifolii (Diptera: Agromyzidae) are two highly invasive species of leafmining flies, which have become established as pests of horticultural crops throughout the world. In certain regions where both species have been introduced, L. sativae has displaced L. trifolii, whereas the opposite has occurred in other regions....
Submersible pressure transducers have been utilized for collecting water level data since early 1960s. Together with a digital datalogger, it is a convenient way to record water level fluctuations for long-term monitoring. Despite the widely use of pressure transducers for water level monitoring, little has been reported for their accuracy...
Larval supply determines year-class strength of fisheries and complex ecological
interactions among adults of benthic marine species. In upwelling regions, a latitudinal cline in
the intensity and persistence of upwelling is thought to affect larval advection and recruitment,
thereby regulating the intensity of interactions in adult populations and communities. We...
There are a number of problems associated with urban expansion and as cities continue
to grow the integration of green roofs can help to ease and offset many of them. This study
uses a combination of moss and Sedum as vegetation for experimental green roof sections in
order to test...
There are three main aspects of sustainability; the environmental, the social and the economic. When it comes to fisheries, stock sustainability is particularly important and the stock and ecosystem health has significant effects both on the environment and on the sector economy. In order to add value to a product,...
We investigated whether hassles mediated the effect of life events on mortality in a sample of 1293 men (M[subscript age] = 65.58, SD = 7.01), participants in the VA Normative Aging Study. We utilized measures of stressful life events
(SLE) and hassles from 1989 to 2004, and men were followed...
To examine emotion regulation in later life, we contrasted the modified hedonic treadmill theory with developmental theories, using hassles and uplifts to assess emotion regulation in context. The sample was 1,315 men from the VA Normative Aging Study aged 53 to 85 years, who completed 3,894 observations between 1989 and...
We conducted 11 independent short-term carbon dioxide (CO₂) manipulation experiments using colonies of
the filamentous cyanobacteria Trichodesmium isolated on three cruises in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre
(NPSG). Dinitrogen (N₂) and carbon (C) fixation rates of these colonies were compared over CO₂ conditions
ranging from ~ 18 Pa (equivalent to...
Past tracking studies of marine animals have primarily targeted adults, biasing our understanding of at-sea habitat use toward older life stages. Anthropogenic threats persist throughout the at-sea ranges of all life stages and it is therefore of interest to population ecologists and managers alike to understand spatiotemporal distributions and possible...
Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha returns to the Yukon River basin have declined dramatically since
the late 1990s, and detailed information on the spawning distribution, stock structure, and stock timing is needed to
better manage the run and facilitate conservation efforts. A total of 2,860 fish were radio-tagged in the lower...
A pheromone lure baited with the sex pheromone of grape mealybug is the most reliable way to confirm the presence or absence of this important vector of grapevine leafroll-associated viruses.
Wild fish populations are typically infected with a variety of micro- and macroparasites that may affect fitness and survival, however, there is little published information on parasite distribution in wild juvenile salmonids in three upper tributaries of the Willamette River, OR. The objectives of this survey were to document (1)...
Tumours arising from the dorsal surface of the tongue occurred in 3 horses from 14-23 years of age. Tumours were surgically excised at a referral hospital (1 case) and on the farm (2 cases) and submitted for histopathology. All tumours were multilobular and composed of vaguely nested, bland, oval to...
Gas hydrates, pervasive in continental margin sediments, are expected to release methane in response to ocean warming, but the geographic range of dissociation and subsequent flux of methane to the ocean are not well constrained. Sediment column thermal models based on observed water column warming trends offshore Washington (USA) show...
Repetitive sequences present a challenge for genome sequence assembly, and highly similar segmental duplications may disappear from assembled genome sequences. Having found a surprising lack of observable phenotypic deviations and non-Mendelian segregation in Arabidopsis thaliana mutants in SEC10, a gene encoding a core subunit of the exocyst tethering complex, we...
Navigating the transition to adulthood is fraught with challenges, especially for those coming of age during an economic crisis. Individuals often rely on support from existing social networks, and establish social capital through deepening and expanding social ties, as they establish footholds in roles marking adulthood. Yet investing in social...
Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is the causative agent of Johne's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects ruminant populations worldwide. The characteristic stages of the disease make diagnosis difficult, resulting in silent transmission among animals in a herd for years before proper detection of the infection. The extensive...
BACKGROUND:
Plant gametophytes play central roles in sexual reproduction. A hallmark of the plant life
cycle is that gene expression is required in the haploid gametophytes. Consequently, many
mutant phenotypes are expressed in this phase.
RESULTS:
We perform a quantitative RNA-seq analysis of embryo sacs, comparator ovules with the
embryo...
Janet Webster served as facilitator of the project and compiled the final report. 23 colleagues on the OSU Libraries and Press worked diligently to explore the OSU campus and report back. Their participation and ideas are the foundation of this report.
The extensive literature in biomedical ethics on physician-assisted death has represented the debate to involve three parties with significant interests. First, there are arguments regarding the legitimacy of terminally patients seeking to exercise an expanded right of self-determination. Furthermore, questions have been posed regarding the compatibility of a patient request...
It is demonstrated in this paper that it is possible
to synthesize a stochastic flash ADC entirely from Verilog code
and a standard digital library. An analog comparator is introduced
that is constructed from two cross-coupled 3-input digital
NAND gates, and can be described in Verilog. The synthesized
comparators have...
Over the past several decades, quality climate information has become extremely valuable to environmental decision makers, yet little is known about how this information is distributed within a social network of professionals. This study focuses on a climate knowledge network associated with a NOAA Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) study...
The sigma convergence method was introduced by G. Nguetseng for studying deterministic homogenization problems beyond the periodic setting and extended by him to the case of deterministic homogenization in general deterministic perforated domains. Here we show that this concept can also model such problems in more general domains. We illustrate...
The literature on religiousness, spirituality (R/S), and health has increased dramatically in
the past decade, but suffers from a lack of integrative theoretical models and well-defined
constructs. Drawing on self-regulation theory, we hypothesized that the effects of religiousness
(e.g., affiliation, service attendance) on health affects behavioral self-regulation of health habits;...
State departments of transportation, transportation consultants, and other transportation agencies are always in need of data that can be used to better understand how different modes of transportation use the road and highway systems. A variety of automatic data collection technologies have been used to gather these data including video...
Biological invasions create complex ecological and societal issues worldwide. Most of the knowledge about invasions comes only from successful invaders, but less is known about which processes determine the differential success of invasions. In this review, we develop a framework to identify the main dimensions driving the success and failure...
A. Elegantissima is not well understood, there is still much we don’t know about the anemone. What we do know is that they live in aggregations, where they divide the labor as mothers and warriors. The anemones have feeding tentacles and acrorhagi, the latter are attacking tentacles. Mothers are found...
Exercise-related menstrual dysfunction (ExMD) is associated with low energy availability (EA), decreased bone mineral density (BMD), and increased risk of musculoskeletal injury. We investigated whether a 6-month carbohydrate-protein (CHO-PRO) supplement (360 kcal/day, 54 g CHO/day, 20 g PRO/day) intervention would improve energy status and musculoskeletal health and restore menses in...
This analysis explores potential changes in the behavior of Oregon's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants after the 2008 recession. I examine this using individual-level administrative data from the State of Oregon in a linear probability model and a duration model. After controlling for a standard set of factors known...
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy approach developed for the treatment of women struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Derived from classical Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), DBT emerged to treat patterns of behavior seen in female patients with BPD who were difficult for therapists to treat, such as...
In 2009 the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) established the Social Sciences Research Coordination Program (SSRCP) to increase industry and government understanding and uses of social sciences in marine and fisheries management. Since that time a number of projects have been funded and promoted by the FRDC through the...
BACKGROUND: Exocytosis is integral to root growth: trafficking components of systems that control growth (e.g., PIN
auxin transport proteins) to the plasma membrane, and secreting materials that expand the cell wall to the
apoplast. Spatiotemporal regulation of exocytosis in eukaryotes often involves the exocyst, an octameric complex
that tethers selected...
Extraction of natural gas from shale formations using the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) requires the use of thousands of cubic meters of fluid. Hydraulic fracturing fluids are pumped under pressure into shale formations, fracturing the shale and releasing pockets of trapped gases. When the pressure in a natural gas...
The Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) applies a predominantly deterministic framework to make detailed predictions (meter scale) of storm-induced coastal flooding, erosion, and cliff failures over large geographic scales (100s of kilometers). CoSMoS was developed for hindcast studies, operational applications (i.e., nowcasts and multiday forecasts), and future climate scenarios (i.e.,...
Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is the dominant ferroelectric material in the market due to its excellent piezoelectric properties, relatively high Curie transition temperature (T[subscript C]), low cost, etc. However, because of emerging applications with requirements for high temperature (T[subscript C] > 400 °C) ferroelectrics, researchers are increasingly looking at alternative...
Current cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium diselenide thin-film solar cells
(TFSCs) utilize thick absorbers (2 - 4 μm). For efficient carrier extraction in these TFSCs,
the absorber layer requires high carrier mobilities and a long minority carrier lifetime, which
necessitates the use of a high purity, defect-free thin film....
The temporal development of biological control of arthropod pests in perennial cropping
systems is largely unreported. In this study, the development of biological control of twospotted
spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, and hop aphid, Phorodon humuli (Schrank), in a new planting
of hop in Oregon is described over a period...
An improved extraction (2.5% HPO₃, 5 mM dithiothreitol) and HPLC quantification using a C-18 column at 35°C and 0.1M acetic acid (98%) and acetonitrile (2%) mobile phase was developed to quantify total ascorbic acid (AA) in commercial whole/semi-skim/skim raw/pasteurized/UHT milk packaged in opaque bags, transparent plastic, cardboard, and Tetra Brik™....
Monte Carlo (MC) algorithms are widely accepted as the most accurate method to calculate dose in a patient geometry. For this work the EGSnrc MC code was used as a benchmark for the identification of dose calculation errors produced by the widely implemented analytical anisotropic algorithm (AAA). By correlating the...
Resistance to moisture uptake is an important attribute of some wood preservatives and can help reduce moisture cycling that leads to the development of deep checks. While the potential for preservative treatments to help improve wood/moisture interactions is acknowledged, there are no tests that specifically evaluate this performance parameter. Checking...
A semi-parametric PAR diffuse radiation model
was developed using commonly measured climatic variables
from 108 site-years of data from 17 AmeriFlux sites. The
model has a logistic form and improves upon previous efforts
using a larger data set and physically viable climate
variables as predictors, including relative humidity, clearness
index,...
To improve energy efficiency of industrial processes, heat exchangers are used to transfer thermal energy between different process streams. The compact size and increased efficiency of microchannel based recuperators make them appealing in extreme environments where costly superalloys are mandatory. Due to the high manufacturing cost of microchannel heat exchanges...
Background: A particular health inequity that has drawn national attention is obesity in persons with disabilities (CDC, 2011). Estimates suggest that as many as 80% of adults with mild to moderate intellectual disability (ID) are overweight or obese (Stanish & Draheim, 2005). Despite the benefits of being active (e.g. controlling...
The ability to develop mobile applications for smartphones and tablets is an increasingly valuable skill in today’s labor market. This thesis details the development of the mobile application Drone Drop from beginning to finish. I first describe the background research conducted to learn about programming languages and other tools used...
In the Western United States where 50-70% of annual precipitation comes in the form of winter snowfall, water supplies may be particularly sensitive to a warming climate. We worked with a network of stakeholders in the Big Wood Basin, Idaho, to explore how climate change may affect water resources and...
An experimental framework for investigation of the effects of Micro Pin Fin Arrays (MPFA) on the fuel oxidation efficiency of catalytic combustion is presented in this thesis. Complete combustion of the fuel is essential for operation at maximum efficiency and high standards of environmental cleanliness desired in existing microscale combustion...
INTRODUCTION: In 2004, the Midwives Alliance of North America's (MANA's) Division of Research developed a Web-based data collection system to gather information on the practices and outcomes associated with midwife-led births in the United States. This system, called the MANA Statistics Project (MANA Stats), grew out of a widely acknowledged...
We isolated seven polymorphic microsatellite loci from a ground beetle (Bembidion atrocaeruleum, Coleoptera, Carabidae
(Stephens, 1826)) associated with naturally and regularly disturbed floodplain habitat in northwest Europe. Loci were tested on 157 individuals
collected from five distinct habitat patches across two adjacent drainage basins in Wales, United Kingdom, to assess...
The rising demand on freshwater resources emphasizes the benefit of biogeochemical processes that maintain clean water by removing pollutants such as excess nitrogen. The most sensitive step in the removal of nitrogen from waterways is the oxidation of ammonia, a part of nitrification, which is carried out by ammonia oxidizing...
Discussions around adapting water management systems to climate change often express the need to increase the flexibility and adaptive capacity of current systems, and to implement robust strategies going forth. While these topics lie at the center of many climate change discussions, transforming adaptation recommendations into tangible tools and information...
Cytogenetic chromosome maps offer molecular tools for genome analysis and clinical cytogenetics and are of particular
importance for species with difficult karyotypes, such as camelids (2n = 74). Building on the available human-camel zoo-fluorescence
in situ hybridization (FISH) data, we developed the first cytogenetic map for the alpaca (Lama pacos,...
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a pervasive focus of organizations and is regarded, alongside sustainability and financial profit, as a key element of a triple bottom-line approach. Corporations are realizing that CSR cannot be approached compartmentally but instead must be ubiquitous across departments and operations. Therefore, it is in...
BACKGROUND: Increasing emphasis in performance-based payment, public reporting, and quality improvement
(QI) has led to widespread interest in measuring and improving the quality of care. By 2014, hospice programs
will be required to report quality data to the federal government or incur financial penalties. With this increased
interest in quality...
Companies working on new product development of smartphones seek to adopt designs and methodologies to help them stay competitive. Due to its high cost contribution to a smartphone, optimizing display cost is an important part of a smartphone's cost reduction activity. Hence, strategically sourcing displays in the development of smartphones...
A method has been developed to measure the thickness of ZnS thin films on Si using optical interference. Thin film optical interference fringes are dependent upon the thickness of the film, and for this reason the thickness can be determined by measuring reflectance spectrum of a thin film. A grating...
Cutting operations using blades appear in several different industries such as food processing, surgical operations, gardening equipment, and so forth. As our society continues to increase our technological prowess, there is an ongoing need to better understand the underlying causes of simple tasks such as cutting so that cutting operations...