Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a problem for coastal communities, the fishing industry, and coastal organisms. Pseudo-nitzschia spp. is a regularly occurring diatom in Oregon’s coastal waters. At times, Pseudo-nitzschia spp. can facultatively produce domoic acid, a neurotoxin that can bioaccumulate in the food chain. While regular shore-based sampling provides...
Estimating how large instream wood (LW) may impact local hydraulics is critical both for mitigating flood hazards and for ensuring intended habitat benefits of the LW are produced. In practice, the design of forms such as LW is limited by a lack of mechanistic tools for estimating how LW features...
Estimating how large instream wood (LW) may impact local hydraulics is critical both for mitigating flood hazards and for ensuring intended habitat benefits of the LW are produced. In practice, the design of forms such as LW is limited by a lack of mechanistic tools for estimating how LW features...
Motivation: Many robots such as legged robots and prosthetic hands/arms are designed to interact with uncertain and time-varying environments to accomplish their tasks.
Observations on humans and animals during their daily tasks suggest that they adapt their leg compliance while traversing with different velocities on different grounds and adjust their...
There could be a geospatial and socio-ecological intersection between climate change, energy production, and sustainable fisheries management in the United States. Marine renewable energy generation efforts are currently being planned, studied, and initially implemented in the country as a response to climate change. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is...
One of the most economically important genes in squash (Cucurbita spp.) is the B gene which conditions precocious depletion of chlorophyll in preanthesis fruit. The B genes are found naturally occurring in at least three of the five domesticated species of Cucurbita, including C. pepo, C. maxima and, most recently...
Pregnant people have been criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes even after Roe v Wade established some rights to reproductive autonomy. Fetal personhood theory, changing societal conceptions of motherhood, and existing racial and class-based biases have fueled an increasing and complex patchwork of punitive policies and interpretations. This study analyzed 35...
Streams across the western United States are impaired from human alterations that have reduced freshwater habitat by simplifying channel complexity and disconnecting floodplains (Knox et al., 2022; Waples et al., 2008; Wohl, 2014). Climate change is likely to continue exacerbating these risks by warming summer surface stream temperatures (Crozier et...
The ringtail (Bassariscus astutus) is a small, nocturnal, meso-carnivore that occupies mid-elevation forests in the southwest portion of Oregon. Ringtail are fully protected within Oregon, but a species of conservation concern as they may be vulnerable to habitat loss and fragmentation. Limited data exists regarding ringtail ecology in forested ecosystems,...
This dissertation examines college students' reflections on gender-related topics within a social justice course of a teacher preparation program. Using critical and feminist approaches, this study explores how a strategically designed curriculum focused on the study of gender enhances students' understanding of sexism, gender oppression, and masculinity. The curriculum employs...
Long-term, large-scale studies of meta-ecosystems provide critical information about how global change influences communities. In my dissertation, I analyzed data from studies encompassing 18 years (2006 – 2023) and over 1,000 km of coastline to investigate drivers of rocky intertidal community structure and dynamics. Specifically, I explored the roles of...
This paper identifies 51 best practices of interpretive programming in relation to the topic of climate change and applies those practices to interpretive programs delivered by Natural Lands, a Pennsylvania environmental non-profit organization, and specifically at the Glades Wildlife Refuge, one of Natural Lands’ nature preserves. The best practices are...
Naked (hull-less) barley has historically been grown for food, but interest in, and breeding efforts for, its use in malting and brewing have increased due to the potential benefits: reduced off-flavors, reduced spent grain, and higher malt extract. These benefits are offset by limiting factors such as high b-glucan and...
This work investigates the acoustic velocity of gas-liquid mixtures in vertical, co-current flow in a concentric annulus. Acoustic velocity shows promise as a detection parameter for the presence and amount of gas in a liquid flow because of its high sensitivity to gas void fraction in a gas-liquid mixture. However,...
Among the candidates for the next generation of nuclear power plant is the high temperature gas reactor (HTGR). Since the HTGR does not have the same operational history as water cooled reactors do in the United States, investigation into the response of different accident phenomena is still an active area...
Modulation assistance is widely employed to improve chip management in turning. This process is also known as modulated turning. Modulated turning transforms continuous cutting into intermittent cutting by periodically disengaging the tool tip from the workpiece, resulting in the generation of short, easily managed chips. This novel method improves the...
Nanoscale Instrumented Indentation Testing (IIT) is a material characterization technique that is used to determine mechanical properties. The size effects present at this scale make it difficult to expand findings to a bulk scale. Modeling can be used to bridge this gap and better understand nanoscale IIT and the size...
Salt-encrusted flats, or Sabkha, are common in arid and semi-arid regions worldwide, including coastal and inland areas. Due to their low shear strength and high compressibility, these soils are often unsuitable for supporting infrastructure or structures. The unique salt content of sabkha formations sets them apart from other soil types....
In this thesis, we propose a systematic code for correcting t = 1 insertion/deletion errors of the character ”0” that can occur between any two consecutive 1’s in a binary string. The code requires balanced input strings, where each word of length n contains ⌈n/2⌉ 0’s and ⌊n/2⌋ 1’s. This...
Seaweeds have gained tremendous recognition as a highly nutritious and sustainable crop. The diverse components of seaweeds are known to exhibit a wide range of bioactivities, including anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and cardiovascular health benefits. One such promising seaweed is Pacific dulse (Devaleraea mollis). While it holds great cultivating potential on the...
Rhizopus microsporus is a globally ubiquitous opportunistic human and plant pathogen that is known to harbor endosymbiotic bacteria. Differences between populations of clinical and environmental R. microsporus isolates have yet to be assessed on a global scale. Whole-genome sequence data were used to explore fungal biology and to assess potential...
The law commonly referred to as Title IX, which was passed in 1972, called for an end to sex-based discrimination in educational and federally-funded settings. Before long, it became particularly associated with the quest for equality for women’s sports. As Title IX was a major catalyst in advancing and even...
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...
Healthcare access exhibits differing levels of complexity, often requiring multi-disciplinary approaches to study its barriers and enablers. Though Argentina has achieved nominal universal healthcare coverage through its public healthcare system, full effective coverage has not been achieved. The public system also has a parallel private care system, adding further complexity...
Legged robots have consistently captured our collective imagination through various forms of media, from Hollywood films, anime, and viral Youtube videos of robots accomplishing incredible feats of acrobatics. These robots have the potential to navigate our environments, capable of completing tasks that would otherwise require human intervention. However, developing controls...
Anthropogenic induced climate change is predicted to alter distribution of existing plant populations. As plants migrate over space and time, populations often fragment and contract, affecting basic elements of population dynamics (e.g., population size, gene flow, genetic diversity, etc.). Little is known, however, how these impacts on plant species will...
Relatively little is known about how various factors influence snow water storage in forested mountain landscapes in maritime (warm winter) climates. This study took advantage of multiple snow data sources including long-term data, synoptic sampling, remote sensing, and modeling to examine factors influencing snow dynamics in the H.J. Andrews Experimental...
Aligning Real-Time Networks (RTNs) with the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) is crucial to ensure accuracy, consistency, interoperability, and long-term data integrity for geospatial applications. However, the effectiveness of different alignment methods as well as the need for monitoring approaches to maintain alignment consistency with the NSRS have not yet...
The conservation community has long recognized the critical role that agricultural landowners play in efforts to improve fish and wildlife habitat in order to recover threatened and endangered species. In many rural areas dominated by agricultural working landscapes, government agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) struggle to...
The RV Ronald H. Brown traveled a section of tropical Atlantic waters northeast of Barbados during January-February 2020 in an international collaboration effort known as Elucidating the Role of Clouds Circulation Coupling in Climate Campaign (EUREC4A). ATOMIC (Atlantic Trade-wind Ocean–Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign) was the US contribution to EUREC4A focused...
People turn to mass spectrometry to answer some of life’s most important questions. From carbon dating of archeological finds to newborn blood screening tests, mass spectrometry allows us to measure molecules which helps advance our knowledge of life and the world we live in. One area of mass spectrometry that...
Emerging research shows that individual differences in how people use technology sometimes cluster by socioeconomic status (SES) and that when technology is not socioeconomically inclusive, low-SES individuals may abandon it. To understand how to improve technology’s SES-inclusivity, we present a multi-phase case study on SocioEconomicMag (SESMag), an emerging inspection method...
A secret sharing scheme allows a dealer to distribute a secret with a set of parties, such that only a certain subset of parties can collaborate and learn the shared secret. Traditional secret sharing schemes have been used as building blocks in various subdomains of cryptography. Recently, two new extensions...
The gut microbiome has been previously implemented in a number of diseases. Of note is its substantial role in metabolic syndrome, which encapsulates a group of conditions that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke. Understanding the causal relationships between the gut microbiome and host processes...
Forests provide a wide range of timber and non-timber products along with providing a range of ecological services and support for biodiversity. Climate change poses various risks to forest health, as it can disrupt tree growth functions and trigger natural disturbances that increase tree mortality. In recent decades, altered disturbance...
The red tree vole (Arborimus longicaudus) is an arboreal Arvicoline rodent endemic to conifer dominated forests of western Oregon and northwestern California. While commonly associated with old forests, often inhabiting stands over 80 years old, tree voles have also been found in young forests between 20 and 80 years old....
Sediment convergence and divergence zones create subaqueous morphological features that range from ripples O (cm) to coastlines O (km). However, there is a gap in knowledge associated with quantifying the contribution of small-scale ripple mobility to the evolution of large-scale morphology. To address this gap, we investigate how small-scale ripples...
Multiagent learning offers a rich framework to address challenging real-world problems such as remote exploration and healthcare coordination, which require autonomous agents to express elaborate interactions. To be effective in such systems, agents must collectively reason about and pursue high-level, long-term, and possibly nebulous objectives while adapting their strategy to...
Natural products have long been an important source of resources for humans. Many of these compounds possess unique chemical structures and potent biological properties. By targeting natural products with specific chemical properties, we can gain a better understanding of the roles these compounds play in the environment and their interactions...
The counseling profession has historically adopted a one-size-fits-all approach toward addressing bereavement. However, there is an emerging paradigm-shift in grief therapy that has been enabled by recent research that differentiates, for example, between types of grief and styles of grieving. This research project contributes to this nuanced approach to grief...
One of the pervasive problems arising in our modern, digital world surrounds data breaches where an adversary, through zero-day exploitations, phishing, or old-fashioned social engineering attacks, gains access to a service’s data stores. Our society increasingly relies on these cloud-based services for everything from our taxes to personal communication. As...
Quantum mechanics is increasingly being taught with a spins-first approach where instructors use simple spin systems to introduce the principles of quantum mechanics rather than systems with wavefunctions. One of the defining characteristics of a spins-first approach is that systems studied have discrete bases, whereas systems with wavefunctions have continuous...
Oregon State University campus grounds have long been admired for their beauty and the diversity of over 65,000 individual woody plants that grace the 570 acres of campus. The woody plant collection has provided a living learning laboratory for the university and surrounding community for decades. The campus grounds include...
Two studies evaluated the mineral status of supplemented beef cattle over two different methods of supplementation. The objective of study 1 was to evaluate the mineral status at weaning and subsequent post-weaning performance of calves supplemented prior to weaning, with limited-fed supplements fortified with trace minerals (Cu, Se, and Zn)...
In eastern Washington and western Oregon, southwest-northeast striking thrust faults and folds of the Yakima Fold and Thrust Belt (YFTB) and northwest-striking dextral strike-slip faults accommodate north-south contraction resulting from clockwise rotation of the North American Plate. Though present to the east and west of the Cascade Range, the connectivity...
Optical sensing technologies are pivotal in the manufacturing process, specifically in defect detection, tool condition estimation, and monitoring. The research aims to enhance the accuracy, efficiency, and reliability of manufacturing metrology by employing optical sensing technologies, such as laser profilometers and image processing techniques. The dissertation proposes intelligent and flexible...
In the past two decades, the advancement in data collection and storage have led to the accumulation of complex datasets. Consequently, various industries have sought data-driven solutions to predict and detect anomalies. Temporal patterns have emerged as potential features in prediction models that could improve the performance of the identification...
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an area-based tool used to manage and protect areas along the coasts and ocean that face impacts from development and climate change. Local communities both impact and are affected by the creation of MPAs and as such, it is important to include their knowledge and...
Background:
The number of people diagnosed with chronic physical conditions is increasing in the United States. Chronic mental illnesses are also common in the country. Low-income women and those on Medicaid bear a disproportionate burden of chronic conditions and these conditions significantly contribute to obstetric morbidity. Prioritizing preventive measures and...
Hyporheic zones are important regions that reside below and along the sides of streams. Within this region, several ecosystem services are provided including stream temperature regulation, habitats for a large variety of species, pollutant removal, and nutrient cycling. Exchange between the hyporheic zone and stream occurs across multiple scales, but...