Aperiodic structures cause significant challenges to subtractive manufacturing methods due to the common features such as inaccessible voids within the structure. Additive man- ufacturing presents an appealing alternative for this purpose. The aim of this research is to test analysis heuristics for validity through application to periodic structures. First, a...
The gut microbiome of all mammals is composed of a diverse commune of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, archaea, protozoa and viruses 1. Studies have shown a symbiotic relationship between the gut microbiome and host physiology, with there being implications in health and disease progression 2. In captive animals, there has...
An electrically driven propellant pump (HALE E-Pump) was analysed and tested to determine its viability for use in a bi-propellant launch vehicle for the High-Altitude Liquid Engine (HALE) student rocket team at Oregon State University (OSU). The pump, manufactured in 2022 by students in OSU machine shops, was hydrostatically tested...
Unintended pregnancy has been found to be one of the most prominent challenges that the public health system is forced to overcome due to the financial and social burdens that accompany it (Yazdkhasti et al., 2015). With nearly 48% of reproductive-age American female patients having experienced at least one unintended...
Childhood tooth decay is a prevalent and concerning public health issue that is often misunderstood or dismissed. In Oregon specifically, over 50% of children have experienced at least one instance of tooth decay and these rates are even higher for marginalized communities such as children living in poverty, children of...
Throughout history, royal wedding gowns have symbolized wealth, high fashion, along with representing what is going on in society at the time. The royal wedding gowns throughout history have been the most talked about dresses. Leading up to the wedding, people are left guessing the designer and the style, and...
The anticonvulsant drug carbamazepine (CBZ) is a commonly prescribed drug that is used to treat patients with neurological disorders including epilepsy and bi-polar disorder. CBZ has a narrow range of efficacy: Below the therapeutic dose, seizures and other conditions are not controlled, and above the recommended window, patients experience side...
With mounting distrust for science, finding effective ways to educate the next generation of scientists has become increasingly important. Microbiology is a prevalent and complex subject and is at the forefront of developing cutting-edge technologies for a more in-depth look into the unseen world. However, many people are only ever...
Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular pathogen that affects millions of people worldwide via ocular or reproductive tract infection. Despite obvious differences in site of infection, there has been shown to be high levels of sequence conservation across C. trachomatis. This high level of sequence conservation is hindered with a...
Through the creation of a children’s book, this project aims to educate children and adults about the act of banning books in the United States. This non-fiction picture book targets readers between four and ten years old. Research on the history of book banning and questions about why it happens...
Use of secondary metabolites in legumes and herbs as forage for dairy cattle is tested through analysis of blood parameters including beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), cholesterol, urea, creatinine, haptoglobin, bilirubin, thiol groups and advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP). The pasture treatments were grass-based (‘Perun’ festulolium (X Festulolium braunii), ‘Rustler’ tall fescue (Festuca...
Artificial collectives are useful for accomplishing tasks that require teamwork from multiple simple robots. Multiple robot and collective testbeds have been developed, yet none stay committed to leverage the local interactions, group size, and imperfect information assumptions that strengthen biological collectives. A review of the collective and multiple robot literature,...
Communication is an aspect of healthcare that affects healthcare providers and patients at each step of their medical journey. The purpose of this research is to identify the effects that language barriers cause between healthcare workers and patients and the patients’ families and how those effects are perceived by and...
The soil microbiome drives nutrient transformation in forest soils and plays a critical role in the carbon (C) cycle of these ecosystems. Wildfires cause significant disturbance to ecosystems and are known to alter C sources available to microbes in forest soils. Summer wildfires in the Pacific Northwest are of growing...
Background: Body Mass Index (BMI) is used as a quick and inexpensive tool to measure populations at risk for a number of metabolic and chronic conditions. In part due to its simplicity, BMI has been criticized for its inaccurate prediction concerning health outcomes. Due to the diversity in the United...
The discovery of new blue pigments is a field of great interest, as commercially available pigments present properties that make them undesirable such as poor sustainability, cost, and stability. By researching solid solutions with the melilite structure, we discovered a new solid solution Sr2Zn1-xNixGe2O7, with 0.1 ≤ x ≤ 0.6,...
The data retrieved from gt;momic sequencing techniques provides the raw information required to infer the basis of mutations and their resulting phenotypes, wherein plant ontologies can be utilized in annotating said phenotypes using a common, shared vocabulary. By relating mutant genes of similar phenotypes both within and between plant species,...
Data science is a rapidly growing industry permeating throughout every aspect of society. Everything collects data these days, and people use this data to find meaningful patterns leading to benefits ranging from more intuitive marketing to better cancer detection. However, increased data collection also leads to increased complexity, and data...
The purpose of this thesis was to quantify sperm acrosome associated 3 (SPACA3) protein expression in the ovaries of young (3.0±0.9 months, n=11) and adult (10.4±2.8 months, n=11) queens. It was hypothesized that SPACA3 expression would not differ between age groups. Immunohistochemistry was performed on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded feline ovarian sections...
Plastics have become an essential part of everyone lives, found in almost every product made today. Tires only make up a fraction of these products but as their use increasing so does the microplastics that flake off. Many studies have evaluated the toxic effects of tire particles on aquatic environments...
The last two years of the Covid-19 pandemic have brought significant changes to global and American societies, as well as to our healthcare system. Millions of Americans were laid off and left without insurance, some areas of medicine suffered financial catastrophe with a fall in patient volumes, others were victims...
To understand human social environments and interaction, it is often necessary to examine them in creative and metaphorical terms. In this thesis, a model of chemical interaction, atomic and molecular bonding, and the role of electrons, nuclei, and other chemical principles are used to describe the social environment of human...
Pseudomonas fluorescens NZI7 was first isolated from a New Zealand mushroom farm in 2001. This Gram-negative bacteria can cause brown blotch disease in the basidiomycete mushroom Agaricus bisporus. P. fluorescens NZI7 can also repel grazing by the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a natural predator of P. fluorescens NZI7. Potentially implicated in...
At the start of the public’s use of the internet in 1983, whatever news made it online was expected to be open and free of charge. However, the idea that news should always be accessible online changed as newspapers moved most of their content online and needed online subscriptions to...
With the various options available when it comes to online clothing subscription services, there are many attributes that affect an individual's decision to purchase a product or service over another. This results in ultimately affecting the consumers’ preference and willingness to pay for a product and/or service. This paper provides...
M. abscessus subsp. abscessus is a nontuberculous mycobacterium causing pulmonary infections in immunocompromised patients. The treatment of MAB infections is challenging due to its natural resistance to most antibiotics. To identify MAB genetic factors that are involved in mechanisms of the antibiotic tolerance, we screened the library of 2,000 gene...
How can healthcare providers, particularly pharmacists, help palliative care patients cope with the inevitability of death? This thesis reviewed how spirituality and religious beliefs can be utilized as key coping strategies for many patients and their loved ones regarding various stressors associated with facing mortality in palliative care. In the...
The way that an individual defines and understands the term “disability” has the potential to affect how they view and interact with people with disabilities. Previous research suggests that classroom interventions and frequent interactions with people who have disabilities can be effective in promoting the social model of disability and...
Osteosarcoma (OSA) is a primary malignant bone tumor sarcoma that occurs in dogs as well as people and has aggressive biologic behavior with devastating consequences. Because of the similarities in morphology and prognosis, OSA in dogs represents an effective model for the equivalent disease in humans. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)...
Polyfunctional thiols are sulfur containing compounds that are important to the flavor and aroma profile of some foods and beverages. S. Cerevisiae has been shown in wine yeast that it is capable of producing these thiols to create a fruity aroma and flavor profile. IRC7, a gene that codes the...
This study investigates the occurrence of beaver (Castor canadensis) in lentic habitat (lakes and ponds) near Mount St. Helens in Washington, 40 years after the 1980 eruption. At the coarse spatial scale, I surveyed lakes for sign of beaver establishment (lodge or den) across multiple volcanic disturbance zones. At a...
Sociality relies upon mechanisms that permit group living through a balance of costs and benefits. However, it is not fully known how specific social contexts influence behavioral and physiological outcomes, and more broadly, how responses to social situations contribute to social organization. A recent experiment investigating the relationship between social...
Expensive pricing for laboratory bioreactors proves to be the main barrier-to-entry for lab-scale academic research. Most laboratory bioreactors are priced at $100K+ and require significant training to use, thereby limiting their accessibility. The IDEAL (Intuitive, Developmental And Research Oriented, Easy To Use, Affordable, And Low Volume) Bioreactor aims to solve...
With robots becoming increasingly commonplace in today’s society, we need to find ways to help robots to become better accepted. One common method used to gain acceptance and build rapport is through the use of humor. Currently, research in robot comedy exists, albeit it is fairly limited. Our goal with...
With cannabis use increasing globally, it is important to understand its acute and chronic impacts on human physiology and behavior. It is proposed that cannabis use is linked to impairments in emotion processing, and brain regions that underlie these processes. The purpose of this review paper is to provide the...
This study tested the utility of a variable mixing efficiency formulation proposed by Mashayek, et al. (2017) for use in oceanographic models other than the modern, pre-industrial ocean. This formulation is used to calculate diapycnal (vertical) mixing due to unresolved subgrid-scale processes. Results from Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) simulations for...
The goal of this project is to better characterize particle movement in a multi-channel fluidized bed. Fluidized beds are commonly used for heat transfer with the rapid fluidization and homogeneous heat distribution. By characterizing this particle flow, it would allow for an improved understanding of the heat transfer mechanisms within...
As a child of two Khmer Rouge refugees, the Khmer Rouge genocide serves as the prologue of my family’s story. The Khmer Rouge genocide took place in Cambodia in 1975-1979 after a successful coup led by the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) (Dy 2007, 2). In an attempt to create...
Previous research on academic success in biology has focused on the influence of prerequisite knowledge and cognitive ability as measured by course grades or GPA. More recently, the field has considered the influence of non-cognitive factors such as grit, defined as passion and perseverance for long term goals. Both grit...
Lanthanide (Ln) based molecular complexes have shown great potential as Lewis acid catalysts for the activation of small molecules. Despite the wealth of structural versatility and high catalytic activity of these complexes, they often lack selectivity and recyclability. This hinders their potential for use in large-scale industrial applications where waste...
Genetic code expansion (GCE) is a technology that allows us to incorporate noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) site-specifically into recombinant proteins using engineered translational machinery. Typically, an orthogonal aaRS/tRNA pair is engineered by directed evolution to recognize the ncAA and incorporate it at a reassigned codon while not interacting with the...
The medical system in healthcare facilities is characterized by its hierarchical nature. This hierarchy is demonstrated in the authority assumed by physicians. Professional respect and communication between doctors and the nurses are necessary for overall job satisfaction and the creation of an optimal environment for quality patient care. The significance...
Solar thermal energy can be stored and later converted to electrical energy using a combination of thermochemical energy storage (TCES) and a thermoelectric generator (TEG). This TEG and TCES combination illustrates a potential route for clean electricity storage from renewable energy. TCES allows for thermal energy from the sun to...
Koi herpesvirus (KHV) is a pathogen affecting common carp and ornamental koi with high morbidity and mortality. Currently, no effective treatment or vaccine is available against this virus. Cullin RING ubiquitin ligases (CRLs) are a class of host proteins that facilitate infection of DNA viruses, such as herpesviruses. Inhibitors of...
This study aims to explore whether a robotic cookstove feeder can sufficiently reduce variability between tests of a cookstove, produces statistically similar firepower and measured emissions rates, and reduce tester interaction time during standard cookstove testing as compared to a trained human operator. A series of modified ISO/FDIS 19867-1 testing...
My thesis is a novel about mental illness. It follows the stories of four different women who all suffer from mental or emotional disorders. My novel explores the dynamics of relationships, trauma, mental illness, and sexuality. I work to create purposeful ambiguity in my novel between reality and the manifestations...
Cannabis use rates have been escalating in recent years within the United States. The effects of cannabis on motivation and effort-based decision making have been of increased interest. Amotivational syndrome is a term used to refer to a lack of motivation, passive personality, non-productive behavior, and lowered educational attainment due...
Dams, culverts, and water intake structures can impact the movement of aquatic and semi-aquatic species within streams and rivers. Datagaps exist regarding the impact of water intake structures on larval coastal giant salamanders (Dicamptodon tenebrosus) as these obstructions may produce a barrier to up and downstream movement. The Rock Creek...
Toxoflavin, a toxic secondary metabolite produced by a variety of bacteria, has been implicated as a causative agent in food poisoning and a virulence factor in phytopathogenic bacteria. This toxin is produced by the tox operon in Burkholderia glumae, in which the encoded protein, ToxD, was previously characterized as essential...
Approximately 2,000 workers in the United States sustain work-related eye injuries that require medical treatment every day. While the majority of eye injuries are not fatal, they can cause temporary or permanent vision loss and result in a decrease in the quality of life of the individuals affected. Unlike blindness...