Recent scientific studies show that framing climate change as a health issue rather than an environmental issue were more persuasive with American audience members (Maibach et. al., 2010; Maibach et. al. 2014). Also in 2014, a survey on respiratory healthcare providers and found that a large percentage believed that climate...
This thesis examines two cultural productions of the Harlem Renaissance: Aaron Douglas's mural series, Aspects of Negro Life, and Nella Larsen's novel Passing. I read these works together because, more than their shared time period, they showcase an attention to the visual. Both Larsen and Douglas's works are concerned with...
Over two million people experience homelessness in the United States, but homeless people are often marginalized by invisibility and stigmas surrounding poverty within their local communities. This research seeks to amplify the voices of Corvallis area homeless women as a means to understand their everyday lived experiences. Six women residing...
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a multimodal adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, released from 2012-2013. As a media event, the show proved how effective transmedia storytelling can be, eventually winning an Emmy for Original Interactive Program. In creating an intensely immediate narrative world, the series adapted more than Jane Austen’s...
Signals from the R/V Langseth’s tuned airgun array were recorded on an array of 33 EarthScope FlexArray seismometers deployed in the Oregon Coast Range from 43.5° to 45°N as part of the 2012 Ridge2Trench experiment to image the structure of the Juan de Fuca plate. This segment of the Juan...
For more than 30 years, researchers have investigated the effects of whole body vibration (WBV) platforms on athletic performance. WBV is a modality in which an individual stands on a vibrating platform to obtain performance effects. Frequency and amplitude of the vibration are the commonly adjusted parameters. The use of...
Several radioxenon isotopes (¹³¹ᵐXe, ¹³³Xe, ¹³³ᵐXe, ¹³⁵Xe) are characteristic byproducts of nuclear explosions, and due to their chemically nonreactive nature can easily escape from tests occurring underground and enter the atmosphere. It has been shown that by utilizing beta-gamma coincidence techniques, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) can...
The Cackling goose (Branta hutchinsii minima) population has increased from a low of 20,000 in 1984 to the current population of 220,000-300,000 (Stehn 2012, Sanders 2013). As the Cackling goose population began to recover in the late 1990s, the majority of the population relocated from wintering in California to the...
Previous research has shown that using fine lightweight aggregate (FLWA) can be a promising strategy to mitigate alkali-silica reaction (ASR) in mortar and concrete. While several possible theories were proposed by researchers, discrepancies in testing methods, materials, and supporting evidence still exist. Therefore, this study was initiated. There are two...
The Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) and the eight public colleges and universities in the system, have depended on the Federal Pell Grant program for more than 40 years to assist students to attend. For some of these institutions, the amount of Pell grant dollars received is as much...
In this thesis, we present semantic equivalence rules for an extension of the choice calculus and sound operations for an implementation of variational lists. The choice calculus is a calculus for describing variation and the formula choice calculus is an extension with formulas. We prove semantic equivalence rules for the...
Black bears (Ursus americanus) in western Oregon and Washington peel bark from conifers in early spring to forage on the sugar-rich phloem and cambial tissues. This provides important energy at a time when similarly attractive forage is scarce. Bears often damage Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) trees in stands that are intensively...
Chainsaws, an indispensable tool for modern forestry operations, rely on bar lubricant to prevent rapid wear of the chain and bar. Choice of bar lubricant must balance performance, cost, and biological impact. Many bar lubricants are available, but little published work exists that conclusively ranks the performance of these choices....
Although plant remains, such as opal phytolith and charcoal analyses, have been used since the beginning of the 20th century to reconstruct past environments by ecologists and botanists, only recently have these techniques been considered by archaeologists in understanding the past at the site level. This study employs opal phytolith...
Improving safety education could contribute to the preparation of better professional engineers. Safety topics are not holistically embedded in transportation course curricula. This thesis explores the current state in which safety is being incorporated in transportation course curricula in terms of design and compares the uses of safety data in...
Given k terminal pairs (s₁,t₁),(s₂,t₂),..., (s[subscript k],t[subscript k]) in an edge-weighted graph G, the k Shortest Vertex-Disjoint Paths problem is to find a collection P₁, P₂,..., P[subscript k] of vertex-disjoint paths with minimum total length, where P[subscript i] is an s[subscript i]-to-t[subscript i] path. As a special case of the...
Integrated manufacturing systems, a combination of subtractive, additive, and joining processes, provide a competitive advantage for manufacturing organizations. As product designs become more complex and capital more scarce, an ideal combination of advanced manufacturing technologies (e.g., powder bed fusion or friction welding), in tandem with traditional subtractive manufacturing systems, can...
Women being elected into public office, a recent occurrence, raises questions and concerns about what it means to have women in office. Concerns include: policy differences women in office might produce, changing the image of what it means to be a leader, and ultimately the fear of a shifting society....
Detection of xenon radioisotopes (radioxenons) has proven to be an important method for detecting nuclear explosions and is particularly well suited for detecting undeclared underground testing. The radioxenon isotopes ¹³¹mXe (t₁/₂ = 11.934 d), ¹³³mXe (t₁/₂ = 2.19 d), ¹³³Xe (t₁/₂ = 5.243 d) and ¹³⁵Xe (t₁/₂ = 9.14 h)...
This dissertation presents a phase domain in-loop-bandwidth spread-spectrum clock generation technique. In this proposed technique, a charge-based discrete-time loop filter is proposed to enable the phase domain in-loop-bandwidth spread-spectrum modulation without a delta-sigma modulator or time-to-digital converter. The in-loop-bandwidth modulation technique maximizes the loop bandwidth to improve phase noise suppression...
Phytoplankton are a sentinel class of organisms in the marine environment. Through their photosynthetic activity in sunlit waters worldwide, phytoplankton shape the health and productivity of marine ecosystems and impact the global climate. In this work a range of ocean sensing technologies (via ships, surf zone sampling, moorings, gliders, and...
Real time networks (RTNs) have become popular for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) surveys because highly accurate positions can be derived in seconds to minutes compared to hours as required with static sessions. To evaluate the accuracy of these shorter-duration, RTN GNSS observations and their potential for use as a...
In 2012, a university in the north western United States began offering a redesigned college algebra class that had a greater emphasis on active learning. Specifically, two out of four class periods were completely devoted to students working together in small groups on carefully designed worksheets. Two years later, the...
With an estimated 5.4 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease facing
individual, social, and financial burdens, researchers must make cognitive assessment inquiries a priority (Alzheimer’s Association, 2016). Cognition encompasses multiple aspects of thought
processes, such as multiple types of memory, planning, inhibitory control, attention, and
processing speed. The higher level...
Irrigated agriculture constitutes the greatest consumptive water use globally, so that irrigation efficiency measures are an important part of global efforts to best utilize this limited resource. However, greater irrigation efficiency must be achieved while simultaneously maintaining or increasing crop yields and farming profitability. Incremental water use decisions are made...
Limnology is undergoing a transition to high-throughput -omic analysis of freshwater
bacterial communities. An important first step in making the transition is to
characterize several genomes that can be used as references to guide metagenome
assembly and analysis. Here I characterize four new freshwater cyanobacterial
genomes, a pair of lake...
This thesis explores the use of human kinesthetic input to advance robotic grasp planning. It specifically focuses on identification of human heuristics of grasp similarity by extensive human-subject experiments. This heuristic is then utilized to develop a robust metric for identifying similar robotic grasps. The central hypothesis of this work...
Background: African American males' experience in higher education is often categorized with negative terminology that does not reflect notions of success. Most research addressing the success of African American males in higher education illuminates factors that impede access to success and is often situated in university settings. Very little research...
Natural disasters could result in unnecessary loss of life and disproportionate suffering to families and communities if evacuation plans are not in place or understood by the public. In the Pacific Northwest, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami from the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) represents one of the most pressing...
This research investigates shape optimization process, using b-spline models and panel methods, to achieve a high lift to drag ratio for an aerodynamic structure. This research is a proof of concept for further research in aerodynamic shape optimization. The coupled process, involving the design and optimization of a random shape,...
High-energy delayed γ-rays from photofission were demonstrated to be signatures for detection and identification of special nuclear materials. Such γ-rays were measured in between linac pulses using independent data acquisition systems. A list-mode system was developed to measure low-energy delayed γ-rays after irradiation. Photofission product yields of ²³⁸U and ²³⁹Pu...
Small and medium-sized enterprises that are characterized by high-mix, low-volume, and highly variable production operations often have unstructured material movement processes that are prone to material handling wastes. These sub-optimal material handling systems are oftentimes a result of small and medium-sized enterprise's limited resources. Current tools to assist organizations in...
This thesis will explore the architectural material culture excavated at the Robert Newell Homestead (35MA41), currently located in Champoeg, Oregon. Specifically, the research focuses on the vernacular architecture or the features and construction methods used that both reflect the environment and the cultural traditions of the dwellings occupants. The Robert...
This thesis provides a comparison of advanced econometric frameworks to account for unobserved factors in crash reported data (also referred to as unobserved heterogeneity) while identifying contributing factors by roadway classification for heavy vehicle injury severity and crash rates. The presented thesis provides two manuscripts that expand the literature regarding...
Videotapes of 90 dyadic interactions from Sommer and Bernieri (2015) were examined to assess verbal and nonverbal intimacy. Verbal intimacy (self-disclosing statements) and nonverbal intimacy behaviors (face gaze, distance, body orientation, and forward lean) were coded in every interaction. It was hypothesized that verbal intimacy (self-disclosure) would increase over time...
The implementation and construction of Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) walls has undergone substantial expansions in recent years, owing to its relatively low cost, ease of construction, and high efficiency compared to conventional retaining methods. As a result, MSE walls are being constructed to greater heights with complex features (e.g. multiple...
Atmospheric pressure changes do not stop at the permeable snow surface but rather propagate into it. These pressure changes range from high-amplitude, low-frequency events caused by seasonal cycles and synoptic weather systems to small-amplitude, high-frequency events caused by topographic features and turbulence. The effect of pressure changes on interstitial air...
A Geyser in a stormwater (SW) and combined sewer system (CSS) is an oscillatory and violent release of a mixture of air and water through vertical shafts. Violent geysers are highly destructive. In the case of combined sewer systems, many municipalities operate their systems at a fraction of their maximum...
The purpose of the dissertation was to gain an understanding of variables that influence the psychosocial health of Asian American college students. There is sufficient literature support indicating this population experience greater levels of intrapersonal and interpersonal distress compared to non-Asian peers, and the significant role of family in their...
The demand from consumers for more sustainable products, and the need to comply with government regulations motivates manufacturers to evaluate their operations for opportunities to reduce environmental impact and improve economic competitiveness. Manufacturers have actively improved the sustainability performance of their products through the use of sustainability assessment methods and...
Two indigenous species of burrowing shrimp inhabit and often dominate the intertidal zone of estuaries along the US West Coast, the ghost shrimp, Neotrypaea californiensis, and the blue mud shrimp, Upogebia pugettensis. Both species are considered ecosystem engineers and play a role in maintaining estuarine health and ecosystem function. They...
Previous research on age-related differences in attentional capture has indicated that older adults are more susceptible to distraction than younger adults and this has been interpreted as a reduced capacity to inhibit distraction in late life. Recently, however, there have been discrepancies in the literature about in what circumstances older...
There is a strong interest in the robotics community in learning how humans grasp and manipulate objects, partly because robots need to operate in human environments and partly because humans are currently much better in physical interaction tasks than robots. This thesis seeks to identify the human heuristics for grasping...
Vibrio parahaemolyticus is the leading cause of foodborne illnesses associated with seafood consumption. Consuming raw or undercooked seafood contaminated with V. parahaemolyticus can result in development of acute gastroenteritis with symptoms of nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping and watery diarrhea within 24 hours of infection. Illness is usually self-limited and lasts...
This dissertation uses argon geochronology and cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure dating methods to address three research questions. The first question concerns a geomagnetic instability recorded in lava flows on the island of Floreana in the Galapagos Archipelago. Changes in the Earth’s magnetic field (intensity and orientation) occur frequently throughout geologic...
Investigations on the application of self-assembled monolayers (SAM) to indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) thin film transistors (TFT) for fabrication and channel modification are presented. The back channel of IGZO thin film transistors can be modified by the absorption of self-assembled monolayers. The electrical properties of the IGZO exposed back...
Structurally efficient and cost-effective solutions are needed to extend the service-life of deficient and aging highway infrastructure around the world. One critical need is to increase the flexural strength of older reinforced concrete (RC) structures to carry heavier and more frequent loads. Titanium alloy bars (TiAB) offer a new opportunity...
This thesis details the applications of a new method of agent-based structure synthesis. The goal of this research is to create structures that meet a structural goal within a simulated physics environment. The method proposed works as an iterative process of changing the structure, evaluating the new structure and using...
Soils and other resource programs in both public land management agencies and private industry are continually being adapted to the challenges of evolving knowledge and experience in the field of forestry. This dissertation explores new ways of thinking about and using soils information in forest planning and management, with a...
It is uncertain how predicted changes in climate will impact vegetation responses and plant species’ distributions because the physiological mechanisms underlying thresholds for damage are not well understood, and responses to stress vary by functional type and developmental stage. Thus, it is crucial to investigate physiological responses to heat and...
Recent state and national standards have increased the interest in engineering at the K-12 level. Science standards, in particular, have begun to make the case for including engineering throughout the K-12 scope of study. Despite the increased attention to engineering, the characteristics and uniqueness of the field of engineering are...
Produced water is a highly saline waste product of oil and gas production, which is generated in larger volumes than the hydrocarbons themselves in the United States. Spillage of produced water is of concern because its high salinity can contaminate soil, surface water and groundwater resources, and kill vegetation, including...
Assessing student conceptual understanding is a valuable method for gauging specific student learning outcomes but can be difficult and time consuming to measure. This research investigates the potential of automating some intermediary steps of a qualitative analysis of student conceptual understanding with tools from the field of Natural Language Processing...
The Columbia River Treaty (CRT) is often used as an example of how treaties can work to normalize, regulate, and improve the cooperative management of shared water resources between basin countries. Few would argue that, in its limited mandate to regulate hydropower generation and flood risk management for downstream communities,...
The low risk and sustainable implementation of nanotechnology requires understanding how nanomaterial physicochemical properties influence their toxicity. Major drivers of toxicity need to be avoided while maximizing product efficacy so nanomaterials can be produced to best serve their applications and be of low risk when intentionally or unintentionally released into...
As scaling of silicon (Si) based devices approaches fundamental limits, thin film metal-insulator-metal (MIM) tunnel diodes are attracting interest due to their potential for high speed operation. Because operation of these devices is based on tunneling, electrode / interfacial roughness is critical. Recently, it was shown that combining ultra-smooth bottom...
In the residential sector, wood is the predominant construction material. In the commercial sector and in mid‐rise construction, the use of wood is limited because of a multitude of reasons, including building code restrictions, the perception of wood as a structural material, fire code requirements, and lack of knowledge and...
Numerical models are effective tools for simulating complex physical processes such as hydrodynamic and water quality processes in aquatic systems. The accuracy of the model is dependent on multiple model parameters and variables that need to be calibrated and regularly updated to reproduce changing aquatic conditions accurately. Multi-sensor water temperature...
Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs), primarily indium doped tin oxide, have been widely used in numerous fields since decades ago, such as solar cells, displays, OLEDs and ‘smart windows’ etc. Owing to the scarcity of indium, there is a great demand for new alternative materials. Metal/insulator/metal (MIM) diodes are a critical...
Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have recently come under intense investigation as building blocks for van der Waals heterostructure electronics. One of the most promising TMDs is MoS₂, which transitions from an indirect bandgap (1.3 eV) in its bulk state to a direct band gap (1.8 eV) in its single...
Visualizing large movement datasets with flow maps is difficult because overlapping flows create significant graphical conflicts that make accurate interpretation difficult or impossible. Interactive flow mapping applications allow users to explore large movement datasets by automatically generating flow maps from subsets of the data in response to queries by the...
Two methanotrophs, M. trichosporium OB3b and M. buryatense 5GB1, were encapsulated using two methods to investigate the potential of methane conversion for biofuel production. Ca-alginate and low melt agarose were used to immobilize the methanotrophs for batch and continuous flow column testing. Varying protein concentrations, residence times, and immobilization methods...
Bees provide critical pollination services to diverse agricultural crops, native plants and trees. Globally, there are reports of bee declines which have been attributed to diseases, exposure to pesticides and changes in land use that are believed to have led to a reduction in foraging resources and nesting habitats for...
Although only a minority of introduced species become established and have noticeable consequences in their new communities, some can displace native species, alter food webs, and cause local extinctions. Studying these invasive species can provide new insights into basic ecological questions as well as inform management strategies. Pacific lionfish (Pterois...
In data-centers, running multiple isolated workloads while getting the most performance out of available hardware is key. For many years Virtual Machines (VMs) have been an enabler, but native containers which offer isolation similar to virtual machines while reducing overhead costs associated with emulating hardware resources have become an increasingly...
There are presently two successful methods used to refine fish muscle proteins: surimi and fish protein isolate (FPI). Both surimi and FPI have the ability to form an elastic gel upon comminution and heating. However, their gelation behaviors are different as they are refined in a biochemically opposite way based...
Researchers rely on bioeconomic models to guide research and generate fishery management advice for commercial fisheries. Due partly to a paradigm shift towards ecosystem based fishery management, increasing complexity in the characteristics of the problems has meant that bioeconomic simulation models are becoming more prevalent in the fisheries literature. However...
We are at risk of losing the sagebrush steppe in the floristic Great Basin to the invasion of Bromus tectorum L., cheatgrass. The floristic Great Basin includes the Central Basin and Range, the Northern Basin and Range, and the Snake River Plain. The Great Basin receives most of its precipitation...
Branched covering spaces are a mathematical concept which originates from complex analysis and topology and has found applications in tensor field topology and geometry re-meshing. Given a manifold surface and an N-way rotational symmetry field, a branched covering space is a manifold surface that has an N-to-1 map to the...
The Pacific Northwest is at risk for significant seismic and tsunami events, which are capable of severely damaging lifeline transportation infrastructure, particularly bridges. As the bridges in the United States age and begin to show signs of fatigue, the risk for severe damage increases. Proper monitoring and inspection of bridges...
The aim of this research is to understand and quantify the modeling differences between CSiBridge and OpenSees, and to determine sensitive model parameters. When designing bridges for the high seismic region of California, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) performs nonlinear time history analysis of their bridge models. For three-dimensional...
Brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), (Halyomorpha halys, Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) is an invasive species that damages numerous agricultural crops including grapes. Related damage include lower berry weight with increased exposure and cracked berries as a result of BMSB feeding activity. The insect is currently detected in 43 US states including Oregon,...
Throughout most of the developed world, surgical sterilization via gonadectomy has become a common tool for combating the overpopulation of unwanted dogs as well as to eliminate the risk of reproductive diseases in pet dogs. In the dog as in other normal adult mammal, the hypothalamus secretes gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH),...
There has been a tremendous growth in interest in carbon nanodots (C-dots) in the past several years. As a nascent nanomaterial, C-dots have shown great promise in applications that benefit from their superior water dispersibility, low toxicity, non-blinking fluorescent output, chemical and biological compatibility, ease of functionalization and resistance to...
This dissertation addresses gaps of knowledge associated with how ecosystem carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions are affected by land use land cover change in tropical peatlands. This was the first study that paired peat swamp forests with oil palm plantations and analyzed site scale variation on greenhouse gas emissions....
Given its abundance and accessibility, exploiting solar energy is a powerful approach to reduce dependency on fossil fuels for energy generation. Thermochemical reactions using concentrated solar power at high temperature are an attractive method of energy storage in support of concentrated solar power (CSP). Thermochemical energy storage of on-sun thermal...
This thesis explores the gendered histories of slavery through the concept of haunting in two neo-slave narrative novels: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Octavia Butler’s Kindred. I offer readings of these texts through slavery’s geographic and temporal implications, in order to argue that the logics of antiblackness remain a fundamental...
The purpose of this case study is to explore a mentoring program designed for African American male community college students at a Pacific Northwest community college. Community college practitioners can use the knowledge gained from this study as a best practice to increase the persistence and success of African American...
In this dissertation, I describe the experimental investigation of catching ions in superfluid helium droplets. The ultimate goal of our project is to build a coherent electron diffraction apparatus for atomic structure determination from oriented single macromolecules. This involves generating protein ions from electrospray ionization (ESI) and doping them in...
This dissertation serves as a contribution to the study of the prehistory of the Central Desert region of Baja California, Mexico. Between 2007 and 2011, a trans-peninsular archaeological survey and excavation program―the Central Desert Early Prehistory Project (CDEPP)―was completed for a portion of the Baja California peninsula extending from the...
The multifaceted role of the environment in regulating the structure and dynamics of biological communities has long fascinated ecologists and motivated much debate and research. Now, in a time of accelerated global changes due to human impacts, the need to understand how the environment shapes communities has gained new urgency....
Massive MIMO is a promising technique for future 5G communications due to its high spectrum and energy efficiency. To realize its potential performance gain, accurate channel state information at transmitter side (CSIT) is essential. Frequency division duplex (FDD) is widely employed by the most cellular systems today. However, it requires...
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are a recent set of standards that leverage decades of research to present an innovative and coherent image for K 12 science education in the United States. Major themes in the NGSS include the intertwining of learning and doing science, addressing connections across scientific...
The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, caused by the Gram-negative bacterium and obligate human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae, remains a significant health and economic burden worldwide. In the absence of a protective vaccine, antimicrobial agents are the only pharmacological intervention for patients with gonorrhea. However, due to the remarkable ability of gonococcus...
Cobalt germanides have been widely studied as semiconductor contact materials, but recent theoretical studies suggest that they may also be excellent catalysts for methane steam reforming with stabilities and activities comparable to noble metal catalysts. In order to study the catalytic activity of cobalt germanides, it is critical to first...
The transition of mature pollen to the progamic phase represents an important step in the regulation of plant sexual reproduction. The progamic phase encompasses the initiation of pollen tube germination, growth of the pollen tube through the stigma (the silk in maize) and concludes with fertilization of the female gametophyte....
New materials with superior mechanical properties, such as increased strength and hardness, have been developed to allow for new and improved products. However, the mechanical properties that make these materials useful also makes them difficult to process using conventional methods. New machining processes need to be developed to generate products...
Hearing loss is one of the most common defect, affecting 360 million people worldwide due to several factors including congenital, present at or soon after birth or acquired with age. Congenital hearing loss affects 32 million children in the world. The economic impact of hearing loss is estimated to cost...
Piezoelectric materials convert mechanical strain into a dielectric displacement, as well as the converse, allowing these materials to be used as sensors, actuators, and transducers. Currently, lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is the primary material used in these applications. Due to environmental toxicity and safety concerns associated with Pb, development of...
Chlamydia is a genus of obligate intracellular bacteria that undergo a unique, biphasic developmental cycle. The infectious and metabolically inert Elementary Bodies (EBs) begin the cycle of infection by attaching and invading a host cells. Once inside, the EBs differentiate into the metabolically active, dividing Reticulate Bodies (RBs) within their...
There are more than 87,000 chemicals in current use with little to no toxicity information available. Assessing such a large number of chemicals using traditional methods would take an unreasonable amount of time and money, and require the use a large number of animals. The incorporation of high-throughput in vivo...
This research examines the literary and philosophical dimensions of the African American Harlem Renaissance, beginning with the historical milieu of the early twentieth century. A social movement that became known as Uplift and the so-called Cabaret Movement emerged as important, competing literary and social ideologies within the Renaissance. W.E.B. Du...
African American male students are a small portion of the student body at NCAA Division 1-A schools, but they make up a large portion of population of college football players. African American male college students are also one of the most at-risk student populations on campus in regards to retention....
A year-long bench-scale treatability study was performed to assess the feasibility of using an activated sludge sequencing batch reactor (SBR) to treat a mixture of domestic wastewater and landfill leachate. A 50/50 (v/v) of domestic wastewater and landfill leachate was treated in a 1 L SBR operated on a 12...
Global warming is becoming an increasingly important environmental concern and CO₂ is considered as the major cause of global warming. Creating useful applications for CO₂ would generate alternatives to merely venting CO₂ to the atmosphere, and decreasing the carbon intensity of human activities. Among various methods of CO₂ utilization, conversion...
The advent of improved DNA sequencing technologies has allowed the analysis of various microbial communities. Bloom-forming freshwater cyanobacteria can produce toxins and taste-and-odor compounds that can negatively affect drinking water supplies. Here, I have employed second- and third-generation sequencing technologies to characterize bloom-forming freshwater cyanobacterial genomes and their associated heterotrophic...
Recently, there has been peaked interest in developing high energy producing and optimized power take-off topologies for Wave Energy Converters (WEC). As large as the potential of the oceans may seem, harnessing that energy and effectively converting it to electricity in significant amounts is a challenge. Currently, there are no...
In this thesis we construct compatible discretizations of Maxwell's equations. We use the term compatible to describe numerical methods for Maxwell's equations which obey many properties of vector Calculus in a discrete setting. Compatible discretizations preserve the exterior Calculus ensuring that the divergence of the curl and the curl of...
The state of Oregon is divided in important ways along rural and urban lines, including the way people make a living, individual and group relationships with the natural world, political ideologies, and personal values. This rural-urban divide has assisted policymakers in making decisions that balance the needs of Oregonians on...
Clashes of ideology are all around us, from our computer and television screens to our composition classrooms, and they merit attention within the composition classroom. This thesis examines the justifications and pedagogies that scholars in rhetoric and composition use to infuse issues of ideology and social ethics into writing instruction...