Previous investigations of glacier dynamics at Tioga Pass during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) have produced different conclusions. A map of the LGM ice extent and flow direction (Alpha et al., 1987) illustrates a south-to-north direction of ice flow across the pass with little evidence to support this inference. Since...
Tyria jacobaeae was introduced as a biological control agent to control the noxious weed Jacobea vulgaris. Eventually introduced to the Cascade mountain range of Oregon, T. jacobaeae has been found to feed on Senecio triangularis, a native plant closely related to J. vulgaris. Nosema tyriae is a parasitic fungus under...
The Cinnabar moth, Tyria jacobaeae, has been introduced to North America in an effort to control the invasive plant Jacobaea vulgaris. The Cinnabar moth is the main host of Nosema tyriae. When infection levels are high, N. tyriae can shorten the lifespan and affect reproduction of the Cinnabar moths. The...
Sand dunes provide coastal communities critical protection from flooding and erosion, as well as a habitat for a range of species- some threatened or endangered. As such, it is of importance to develop a quantitative understanding of the processes through which these systems evolve at a variety of temporal and...
Optical trapping is a tool used throughout a wide variety of disciplines rang- ing from precisely probing and manipulating sub-micron organisms in biol- ogy to analyzing fundamental charge transfer in colloidal physics. This thesis presents research involving optical tweezer force measurements of polystyrene and silica microspheres. In addition, preliminary work...
DNA segments in the fungus Fusarium graminearum were identified as possible genes encoding for chromodomain proteins (CDPs), and targeted for genetic manipulation. Targeted single-gene deletion strains, as wells as GFP-S tag fusion strains, were generated from wildtype F. graminearum protoplasts, and verified strains were screened for phenotypic differences, such as...
We analyze some symmetries of the octonionic multiplication table, expressed in terms of the Fano plane. In particular, we count how many ways the Fano plane can be labeled as the octonionic multiplication table, all corresponding to a specified octonion algebra. We show that only 28 of these labelings of...
During the unrest in revolutionary Boston, Massachusetts, social distinctions were often blurred, as Old World ideals were challenged in a New World context. Boston’s gun culture constituted one such example. As the colony of Massachusetts Bay moved ever closer toward a war with Great Britain, the use of firearms constituted...