Two policies for allocating individual assets from a pool of assets to incoming requests were contrasted within the context of replacement analysis. Assets within a pool are considered similar in the service they provide, but may differ in age and cumulative usage. The two policies considered for allocating assets to...
Landfill leachate is a complex wastewater that contains high levels of ammonium (often over 250 ppm) and trace heavy metals (usually under 0.2 ppm). Microalgae have been shown to inexpensively and effectively treat wastewaters containing high loads of organics and nutrients, as well as adsorb metal ions. This thesis focuses...
Base-pairing interaction are the fundamental blocks of an RNA structure. With increased ability to determine the structure of RNA molecules, an accurate and informative way of classifying these interactions would help to study RNA structure at many levels. Apart from the well-known complementary base pairs and wobble pairs, other interactions...
OSU Extension provides important educational services to members of the agricultural community. Programming options can be guided by needs assessment surveys, which are used to determine gaps in knowledge and understanding for communities. The objective of this study was to develop and execute a survey to gather information on: 1)...
Using a spectrometer and photomultiplier tube, I measured the electromagnetic radiation transmittance properties of three types of tissue-- ventral skin, cardiac muscle, and liver tissue--in the red-sided garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis between the wavelengths of 450 and 850 nanometers (nm). Control readings were taken using a 10⁻² neutral density...
The ribosomal cistron (rDNA cistron) is a tandemly repeated region in the genome that encodes for the necessary subunits to form ribosomes, complex molecules responsible for the assembly of amino acids into proteins. They are found within all cellular organisms, and evolve at relatively constant rates, making them ideal for...
Essential oils have numerous chemical and therapeutic applications. Some oil extraction methods, including steam distillation, require a large energy input. An alternative technique with a lower energy demand is the extraction of oils using supercritical liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), which extracts essential oils with minimal environmental impact. While this often...
The use of in-vehicle technologies, such as mobile phones, while driving has proliferated in recent years. Most notably, drivers are using mobile phones to send and receive text messages while operating a vehicle with increasing frequency. The act of texting while driving poses a significant threat not only to the...
A long running problem in mathematical biology is the prediction of extinction events, a specialized case of the larger global stability problem found in differential equations and dynamical systems theory. A central technical question is how to introduce the randomness observed in real ecological systems not accounted for in deterministic...
With the rapid onset of globalization, there are a large number of political, economic and social factors which are constantly changing. These all have profound effects on the demographics of individual populations. This shift in social demography is accompanied by an epidemiologic transition as well.
In order to gain an...