Variation in cheese quality due to geographic location is important to cheese producers, consumers, and retailers on a global level. Understanding the impacts of geographic location of cheese plants may be useful to businesses for marketing, cost reduction, and quality improvement. Many aspects of variation due to geography have been...
Managing invasive species is vital to preserving native species and maintaining the integrity of environments and ecological roles. Rats are one of the most prolific and intrusive invasive species that have successfully cohabitated with humans over centuries as we have expanded and advanced our societies. Thus, rats have historically been...
Whey protein’s potential for bioactivity is well documented, but there is disagreement on the extent to which it may modulate the immune system towards decreased inflammation. Decreased inflammation is generally perceived as a beneficial bioactivity in foods as excessive chronic inflammation is linked to morbidity and mortality.
This thesis first...
This thesis presents a novel design for a rheometer style viscometer by implementing high temperature and inert atmospheric requirements on the device. The goals of this device are to measure the viscosity of high temperature molten salts, which are corrosive and extremely hydroscopic. It also aims to be able to...
In 2021, Oregon’s legislature passed House Bill 2021 with relative ease. House Bill 2021 is a mandate for the state’s two largest utilities to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation on a decreasing scale, reaching 100% below baseline levels by 2040. This ambitious piece of legislation, meant to reduce the...
Concrete has been categorized as a key contributor of CO2 (carbon) emissions into the atmosphere. This is mostly associated with the production of ordinary portland cement (OPC). The concrete and cement industries are pursuing a path to reduce their carbon emissions generally in accordance with the climate change goals outlined...
This thesis examines the origins and outcomes of Operation Paperclip, a program the U.S. government operated in the years immediately following WWII to recruit former Nazi doctors, scientists, and technicians, and capitalize on their research experience. As part of this operation, the U.S. welcomed two doctors who had conducted medical...
Natural products (a.k.a. secondary metabolites) are produced by living organisms that are not essential for their growth, development, or reproduction, but may play a role in their survival or adaptability in nature. Many secondary metabolites isolated from plants and microbes have found use as molecular probes, drug leads, or medicine...
Vietnam is considered one of the most climate change-vulnerable countries due to its high dependence on agriculture and its coastal location. Increased atmospheric temperatures caused by climate change also significantly threaten one of Vietnam's most important cash crops, robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). Suitable cultivation sites of robusta, which comprises 97%...
In the most recent decades, there has been extensive loss of seagrasses within the Indian River Lagoon estuary on the eastern coast of Florida. This decline poses a significant threat to the ecological function of the ecosystem, as well as to the social and economic wellbeing of the surrounding communities....