The research conducted here originated with the question of what caused the massive build-up of nuclear arsenals, which included ever larger and more powerful bombs and delivery systems from them, in the United States and the Soviet Union, even though the consensus beforehand was that nuclear energy should be prohibited...
Pornography remains one of the most controversial topics in our culture. Politicians, religious groups, and special interest organizations tend to focus on the ‘effects’ pornography has on those who consume it, and fear that pornography is a threat to public health. The general discourse surrounding pornography is that men produce...
This study documented the influence of the completion agenda on decision-making by community college career and technical education (CTE) deans. Ten career and technical programs deans were identified as the sample for the study. Washington State was selected because of the Student Achievement Initiative that was developed as a completion...
Currently, wax printing is limited to materials that can be processed by a wax printer. Wax transfer printing is a method that allows previously unusable materials to be patterned with wax via an intermediate template. Millipore cellulose, a material too thick to be processed by a wax printer, was patterned...
The human health effects of exposure to numerous single environmental contaminants have been well characterized. Yet, biomonitoring studies have detected multiple environmental chemicals in humans, highlighting the need to investigate the health effects of exposure to multiple environmental chemicals. Environmental data is highly complex, therefore current methods of defining environmental...
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are extremely abundant, biodegradable and light weight nanoparticles that have the potential to contribute in many fields including packaging, construction, solar cells and automotive. With the increasing interest in nanotechnology and nanocomposites, CNCs could provide a renewable, optically transparent and strong alternative to other nano-scale reinforcement phases....
This thesis is an exploration of writing a music album from a singer-song writer perspective. It contains the process of writing lyrics and music, inspiration from other artists, as well as performance. It goes through the emotional ebbs and flows of creative writing, ground work for recording an album and...
Recognizing human actions in videos is a long-standing problem in computer vision with a wide range of applications including video surveillance, content retrieval, and sports analysis. This thesis focuses on addressing efficiency and robustness of video classification in unconstrained real-world settings. The thesis work can be broadly divided into four...
Soft robots are designed to utilize their compliance and contortionistic abilities to both interact safely with their environment and move through it in ways a rigid robot cannot. To more completely achieve this, the robot should be made of as many soft components as possible. Here we present a completely...
In order to more effectively design large, complex systems, risk must be accounted for throughout the design process. A systematic way to account for risk is by using system model simulation. During the conceptual design phase, functional models can be drawn to help the engineer design their system's functional architecture....
A poster explaining how the transtheoretical model can be applied to a case management intervention to help reduce BMI among a specific population. Specifically, this piece depicts the application of it to obese African American children by examining their eating habits and increasing their physical activity.
In December of 2016 Oregon State University Libraries and Press (OSULP) conducted a workplace climate survey. All non-student faculty and staff were invited to take the survey; the response rate was 62 (68%).
This survey was adapted from a workplace climate survey created by the University of Nevada at Las...
Logging residue (slash) consists primarily of the branches and treetops of harvested merchantable timber; excluding snags, downed logs, and stumps. Residues may be scattered about the harvest unit, concentrated in slash-piles (SP), or both depending on the harvest method and equipment used. Accurate estimates of residue biomass are useful to...
The Forest Elevation Snow Transect (ForEST) project is a paired site elevational snow study. It is designed to measure how snow accumulates and ablates under different forest structures across an elevation range. The ForEST project has been ongoing since the winter of 2011-2012 within the McKenzie River Basin of the...
Climate-induced range overlap can result in novel interactions between similar species and potentially lead to competitive exclusion. The Western Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth and is experiencing a poleward climate migration. This transition from a polar to sub-polar environment has resulted in a...
Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) has recently appeared as a promising approach for removing nitrogen from landfill leachates because it requires less oxygen and no organic carbon compared to traditional nitrification-denitrification system, and it produces low sludge volumes, thereby reducing operating and biological sludge disposal costs by over 60%. Anammox bacteria...
Radio frequency identification (RFID) has long been regarded as an automated data collection technology that promises solutions to inefficiencies found in supply chains such as “just-in-case” inventory stock, inventory obsolescence, stockouts, and theft. However, the disappointingly slow return on RFID investment has forced companies to examine and redefine RFID initiatives....
Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a highly valuable crop that makes up a large portion of the world’s food. However, breeding for improved varieties with desirable characteristics can be a challenge. This research examined two different issues wheat breeders deal with throughout the selection process all the way to production of...
The perception of a long-term cost advantage of synthetic infill turf systems relative to natural grass systems has contributed to a rise in their popularity in the USA. However, few comprehensive cost assessments of natural grass and synthetic infill systems exist. There are also no studies looking at interactions between...
In recent years, state governments in the U.S. have promoted improvements to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education as a means to stimulate future economic growth and increase economic mobility into careers with higher earnings. Oregon’s STEM Initiative includes the creation and development of strategic public-private partnerships which aim...