Grapes (e.g. Vitis vinifera L.) are one of the more important fruit crops from an economic standpoint with world market values over 550 million US dollars in 2007 and 2008, second to apples (United States Department of Agriculture). While a satisfactory level of ripeness is of primary concern, the quality...
This dissertation is concerned with the diminution of Oregon's Umatilla Indian Reservation over a 120 year period (1855-1975). Its objective is to show that the transfer of land from Indian to non-Indian ownership was most attributable to four casual factors:
(1) historical happenstance, including the passage of the Oregon Trail...
In 2003 and 2004 vigor zones were delineated in two commercial vineyard
sites based on vine growth variation to assess fruit and wine phenolic chemistry. In
2004, the effects of shading on the accumulation of phenolic compounds were also
investigated. Model extractions were done from the shading experiment and the...
The global cryosphere, defined as the world’s ice and snow covered regions, is a crucial water source for society and ecosystem functions, as well as an important regulator of the earth’s energy budget. Melt from glaciers and seasonal snow cover provides water for more than a sixth of the world’s...
Several solar energy models exist, but all models must balance: computational runtime, light complexity, and model output volume. These models span the spectrum of simplistic global solar energy equation sets to complex light ray-tracing models. Spatiotemporally inaccurate representations of solar energy may cause compounding simulation effects and introduce unknown modeling...
The objective of this dissertation is to enhance the monitoring of forest ecosystems through the utilization of remotely sensed data to address the exigencies posed by the Anthropocene. On a global scale, rising temperatures and fluctuating precipitation patterns have strained forests and produced shifts in natural disturbance regimes. Additionally, the...
Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus) and Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni; hereafter elk) populations in northeast Oregon have declined in the past 10 to 20 years. Concurrent with these declines, cougar (Puma concolor) populations have apparently increased, leading to speculation that predation by cougars may be responsible for declining...
Wave dispersion and fracture are phenomena that involve. mechanisms triggered at the scale of a material's internal structure. Experiments were performed with a candidate material to judge the hypothesis that wave dispersion measurements can be used to nondestructively predict fracture strength. Wood-based particleboard was chosen as the candidate material because...
In mining and mineral processing, compressive loading is often encountered
during the comminution of ore bearing minerals and in the wear resistant materials
used in the comminution circuit. A common thread joining many of the materials that
are primarily used under compressive loading is the presence of a high modulus...
Polymeric composites exhibit time-dependent behavior, which raises a concern
about their long term durability and leads to a viscoelastic study of these materials.
Linear viscoelastic analysis has been found to be inadequate because many polymers
exhibit nonlinear viscoelastic behavior. Classical laminate theory is commonly used in
the study of laminated...
