Implementation fidelity (dosage, adherence, quality of delivery, responsiveness, program differentiation) is the degree to which a program was carried out to its original intent. The following three studies examined the implementation fidelity of a school-based health promotion social and character development (SACD) program. The, Positive Action (PA) program was a...
The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions of the first year experience of teaching secondary agriculture and to explore the relationships between these perceptions, the characteristics of beginning agriculture teachers, and the types of support provided to beginning teachers. An additional focus of the study was to...
A variety of laser spectroscopic methods are employed in this
thesis research for studies of CF₃NO, an interesting model
photodissociative system, and for investigation of low energy rotations
and vibrations of small molecules and low molecular weight clusters in
free jet expansions.
Nonradiative energy decay for electronically excited CF₃NO is...
Transport phenomena specially the ones that occur in the various engineering disciplines such as tissue engineering and natural environment are often complex to analyze mostly due to the dynamic and geometric complexities; as such, they have been the subject of an active and intense area of research in past decades....
Selenoprotein W (SeW) is a protein whose function is unknown, but potentially plays a vital role in calcium metabolism, as an indirect link has been established with white muscle disease (WMD). White muscle disease occurs in selenium deficient animals, and is characterized by the precipitation of calcium in muscle, leading...
Five U.S. high performance research reactors (HPRRs) are currently part of an international nonproliferation program with the objective of ultimately converting their highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel to a new high density, low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel while still maintaining their reactor kinetic and thermal hydraulic performance. A uranium-molybdenum (U-Mo)...
In this work, continuous synthesis routes for binary nanoparticles using advantages of microchannel mixing (low diffusion distances and higher mass transfer) and fast heating rates provided by ultrasound induced heating are investigated. In addition, the application of silica nanoparticles in anti-reflective coatings on glass and understanding the structure property-performance correlation...
Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) and early marriage of female children are significant public health challenges in Nigeria. Previous research has shown a strong association between the two. Furthermore, both issues have severe implications for socioeconomic progress and present barriers to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)....
Advances of colloidal nanomaterials for societal benefit have been hampered by the high cost and low quality of nanoparticles (NPs). The production of high quality nanoparticles within colloidal suspension has two related concerns; (1) current high production rates methods of synthesizing nanoparticles result in a larger range of particle size,...
Accumulating human impacts on freshwater ecosystems have created a biodiversity crisis for freshwater fishes while conservation efficacy remains hampered by the Linnaean shortfall, the ignorance of many species that have yet to be discovered and described. The past discovery of most freshwater fish species was simply a matter of collecting...
Airborne discrete-return lidar is an active remote sensing technology capable of obtaining accurate, fine-resolution three-dimensional measurements over large areas. Discrete-return lidar data produce three-dimensional object characterizations in the form of point clouds defined by precise x, y and z coordinates. The data also provide intensity values for each point that...
Phages of crown gall bacteria were among the first to be
isolated and certain properties of these phages have been studied by
a number of investigators. However, several important characteristics
have not been studied in detail. The present investigation was
made in order to determine the major sources of phages...
Seven decades of supercritical heat transfer research have not seen an attempt to characterize turbulent thermal transport in internal flows subject to asymmetric heating. Existing heat transfer models therefore do not account for phenomena that dictates thermal transport, in the proximity of the pseudo-critical point, for non-uniform heating. Additionally, past...
The objective of our study was to investigate the effect of selenium on
selenoprotein W. Western blot analysis indicated that selenoprotein W is present in
muscle, brain, testis and spleen of rat tissues. Tissue distribution of selenoprotein W
was not altered in rats fed various selenium levels. Among muscle, brain,...
The Generation IV Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) design is being actively
studied in various countries for application due to its inherent passive safe design,
higher thermal efficiencies, and proposed capability of providing high temperature
process heat. The pebble bed core is one of two core designs used in gas...
Rat selenoprotein W (SeW) promoter activity was investigated using different concentrations of cadmium, copper, and zinc. Two fragments (404bp and 1265bp) of the SeW promoter, containing a single metal response element (MRE), were ligated into the multiple cloning site of a pGL3-Basic reporter plasmid. The constructs were transfected into cultured...
Characiform fishes form one of the most diverse freshwater fish clades in the world. Comprising more than 2000 species and distributed primarily in South America and Africa, characiforms vary dramatically in their ecomorphology. However, the evolutionary processes responsible for the immense ecomorphological diversity remains unknown. Recently, a study postulated that...
The immune system is a complex network of cellular processes working in harmony to guard us against pathogenic attack. Of utmost importance is the ability of the immune system to discriminate between “self” and “non-self” and diseased versus healthy. Recognition of antigens complexed to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules is...
Computer decision aids can help integrate and apply diverse sources of information and expertise to problems of integrated pest management (IPM) in agriculture and forestry. AppleMgr combines a rule-based expert system with databases and spreadsheets in a prototype decision aid intended to be expanded and modified for use by extension...
Knowledge of how individual organisms behave in their environment can provide a greater understanding of population dynamics. In a predator-prey system, the choices made by predators when foraging for prey are important aspects of behavior. Particularly in the case of a stage-structured prey population, how the predator selects prey stages...
High temperature microchannel heat recuperators (HTμRs) offer an efficient means of improving reactor process thermal efficiency by offering smaller form factors due to increased heat transfer surface area density and volumetric heat transfer rate over traditional heat exchanger designs. To date, HTμRs face cost and reliability challenges. In this work,...
Research regarding factors that promote high-quality implementation of school-based prevention programs has increased markedly over the past decade as it has become increasingly recognized that evidence-based programs are often not well implemented. Whole-school interventions may be particularly complex to implement because they are intended to involve all school personnel and...
We identified and evaluated a phytoseiid predator as a biological control agent of multiple spider mites pests that occur in ornamental nurseries. When comparing species, Neoseiulus fallacis (Garman) had a wider prey range than Galendromus occidentalis (Nesbitt), a higher probability of overwintering than Neoseiulus califomicus McGregor and was equally or...
Animal weapons are thought to have evolved to compete for reproductive opportunities within a species. Across the diverse weapon-bearing taxa, several evolutionary trends have emerged: (1) increasing complexity and relative size across ontogeny, (2) sexual dimorphism, and (3) higher levels of random deviations from symmetry (i.e., fluctuating asymmetry) than non-weaponized...
While the role of ubiquitin in protein degradation is well established, the role of other ubiquitin-like proteins (UBLs) in protein degradation is less clear. Neural precursor cell expressed developmentally down-regulated protein 8 (NEDD8) is the UBL with the highest level of amino acid identity when compared to ubiquitin. Here we...
In the second chapter, a foam-core meniscus coating process was developed for retrofitting 100 nm-scale sol-gel anti-reflective coatings onto in-field solar panels through the deposition, evaporation, and curing of wet films.Advantages of this technique include the means to control fluid flow relative to substrate motion and the ability to conform...
Tibial stress fractures are common in runners. However, it is unclear what factors are associated with tibial stress fractures. This study aimed to investigate 1) magnitudes of bone contact forces occurring while running 2) whether or not repeated application of running loads is sufficient to explain tibial stress fractures and...
Transient liquid-phase diffusion brazing is used in precision, hermetic joining applications as a replacement for diffusion bonding to reduce cycle times, reduce bonding pressure and improve yields. Studies showed that the interlayer used in diffusion brazing can be detrimental due to the use of melting point depressants (MPDs). The goal...
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Brian K. Paul
Transient liquid-phase diffusion brazing is used in precision, hermetic
This dissertation explores the physiology and gene expression of the ammonia-oxidizing bacterium Nitrosomonas europaea in surface-associated bacterial communities, or biofilms. Biofilms of N. europaea were cultivated in drip flow reactors for several weeks and gene expression microarrays were used to detect 240 genes differentially expressed between the mature biofilms and...
The conventional advection-dispersion equation cannot adequately describe all processes driving
solute transport in heterogeneous systems. This dissertation focuses on the individual influences
of both chemical (Chapter 2) and physical processes (Chapters 3 and 4) which affect
solute transport. In Chapter 2 we analyzed uranium transport in natural sediment using the...
In the U.S., childhood overweight and obesity has grown to epidemic levels. The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) found that nationwide, approximately 32% of children 10–17 years old are identified as overweight, over half of them (nearly 17%) are obese. This is a concern because these rates continue to...
This work focuses primarily the development of methods for imaging microbial biofilms in opaque porous media using x-ray computed microtomography (CT). Two methods for evaluating biofilms in porous media are presented. The first focuses on the addition of silver-coated, hollow glass microspheres to a biofilm-containing micro-model. The silver-coated microspheres affix...
Sexual assault is a major public health concern in the U.S, and college students are particularly vulnerable to victimization. A health issue that affects nearly one in four women (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000; Karjane, Cullen, & Turner, 2005) and that is associated with severe negative health outcomes, including depression...
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______________________________________________________________________________
Brian R. Flay
Sexual assault is a major public health concern in the U.S, and
The objective of this study was to further determine the distribution of
selenoprotein W (SeW) in tissues from rats and sheep fed different selenium levels and to
search for the possible functions of this protein. In the rat study a total of 28 rat tissues
were examined and SeW was...
The purposes of the study were to: 1) evaluate health knowledge competencies,
2) assess health skills, and 3) determine interrelationships among health knowledge,
health skills, and self-reported behavioral demographic variables for Oregon
entry-level college freshmen who had graduated from Oregon schools. An instrument,
the "Health Education Survey," was developed with...
The purpose of this study was to examine the responses to a mail
survey of a random sample of female subjects (Ss), who at the time of the
study were members of the Oregon Public Employees Union employed as
clerical specialists by the State of Oregon, in order to: 1....
Since the 1890s, American federalism has been perceived as being unique in the world by having two different levels of government operating within the same jurisdiction without influencing one another. Modern scholars call into question the validity of this basic assumption, but few have published quantitative evidence to reject its...
Statistically-based estimation techniques are presented
in this study. These techniques incorporate structural test
data to improve finite element models used for dynamic
analysis.
Methods are developed to identify optimum values of the
parameters of finite element models describing structures.
The parameters which may be identified are : element area,
mass...
In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, understanding wildlife disease spillover is critical to maintaining protected wildlife areas. Studying ecoimmunology and wildlife disease ecology helps to understand immune and disease traits in an ecological context, which is invaluable in preventing pathogen spillover between livestock and wildlife. To investigate this...
Rhizopogon is a large genus of ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi that grows in association with host trees of the family Pinaceae. We have conducted a series of studies investigating the ecology and evolutionary biology of the EM symbiosis shared between R. subgenus Villosuli and trees of the genus Pseudotsuga. Two members...
The study of the infra-specific ranks (i.e., subspecies and variety) can be considered
the study of the process of speciation. Astragalus lentiginosus Douglas ex Hooker
(Fabaceae) is the most taxon rich species in the U.S. flora currently including 40
taxonomic varieties. These varieties were described using traditional taxonomic
methods primarily...
The order Cornales (dogwoods) is the earliest diverging lineage within the most diverse group of flowering plants, the asterids (>80,000 species). Although molecular phylogenetics have significantly improved our understanding of cornalean systematics, early phylogenetic relationships remain uncertain due to an initial rapid radiation. The fossil record of Cornales is extensive...
The size, shape, and stability of a species’ dietary niche can both influence and reflect a variety of biological patterns, including species interactions, extinction risk, and ecosystem function. This is particularly apparent when dietary changes manifest at ecosystem and clade scales to profoundly affect macroecological and macroevolutionary trajectories. However, many...
This thesis is an account of my explorations into the field of natural products chemistry. These investigations led to the discovery of several novel secondary metabolites isolated from the marine cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscula. In addition, biosynthetic investigations were undertaken using stable isotope-labeled precursors. The dominant role that NMR spectroscopy plays...
Contaminant transport in ground water is an important environmental process that
affects a host of natural systems. Transport of contaminants is affected by many
processes, including aqueous complexation, adsorption, and redox reactions. One of the
most important components of an aquifer that controls transport is iron-oxide. In this
study, the...