Intertidal herbivores, such as isopods, help regulate and contribute to nutrient cycling and organic carbon flow through the trophic levels in estuaries and coastal ecosystems. Though much is known about the microbiomes of macrophyte leaves that serve as the primary food source for isopods, and (to a lesser extent) the...
The combined activities of diverse heterotrophic marine microorganisms significantly shape global biogeochemical cycles, but models of these activities are currently limited to aggregate microbial community processes, and it remains unclear how community structure and the functional roles of specific microbial taxa should be integrated into these models. Therefore, understanding the...
The inverse electron demand Diels Alder reaction between tetrazines and strained alkenes is an exceptionally useful tool in functionalizing to biomolecules since it is orthogonal to the chemistry of most living systems and have exceptionally high rate constants. In particular reactions between strained trans-cyclooctenes (sTCO) and tetrazines can achieve second...
Biotic and abiotic processes at continent-ocean interfaces cycle a disproportionate mass of carbon and nutrients relative to their global surface area, and microbial activity is a principal determinant of organic and inorganic matter flux in these transition zones. Most studies using modern high-throughput ‘omics techniques to link microorganisms with costal...
Studying human’s ability to estimate temporal durations could lead to a greater
understanding of our cognitive abilities as well as the processes that underlie temporal
estimation. It has been shown through previous research that time and number may be
interconnected cognitively and that the magnitude of one may alter the...
Lilacs are a group of ornamental trees and shrubs in the Oleaceae family consisting of 22 to 30 species. There are six series within genus Syringa: Pubescentes, Villosae, Ligustrae, Ligustrina, Pinnatifoliae, and Syringa. Fertility and cross-compatibility among cultivars, species, and series have yet to be formally investigated. Over three years,...
An ideal labeling reaction between protein and surface should generate a protein-patterned surface with control over the orientation of the desired protein. Controlling orientation would generate a homogeneous, un-fouled protein surface and allow for maximum efficiency in regards to the activity, reactivity, and stability of the protein. In this research...
The buildup of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen and oxygen species (RNS) is known as oxidative stress. Oxidative stress results in a wide variety of modification to biological macromolecules including nucleic acids, lipids, and proteins. For at least 30 years it has been known that high levels of...
Cotoneaster is an ornamental shrub valued for showy flowers, berries and architecture as well as the ability tolerate adverse conditions under which other taxa fail. Cotoneaster is a highly diverse genus of over 400 species, of which few are available in the US nursery trade. Some species commercially available have...
Immobilized proteins are integral components of a number of important technologies, including the principal component of many biosensors, as functional coatings in various implants, as catalysts is industrial biosynthesis, and as the building blocks of next-generation nanotechnologies. Despite their ubiquity, relatively little is known about the processes that shape immobilized...
The common cherrylaurel (Prunus laurocerasus) and Portuguese cherrylaurel (P. lusitanica) are economically important landscape shrubs across the United States. To gain a better understanding of physiology and morphology in these higher level polyploids (P. lusitanica, 2n = 8x; P. laurocerasus, 2n =22x), a variety of breeding experiments were performed. The...
Buddleja davidii (butterfly bush) is a highly adaptable landscape plant known for pollinator attraction. Unfortunately, it is also regarded as an invasive plant in highly disturbed environments across the globe. It is an invasive species in Oregon, officially classified as a class B noxious weed in 2004. Currently the state...
Landscape plants are highly diverse and nursery producers often grow thousands of taxa to satisfy the varied needs and aesthetic tastes of consumers. Related to this diversity, ornamental plant breeders must be nimble and diverse in their approach. Two seemingly disparate studies were conducted to investigate improving ornamental shrubs –...
High Entropy Alloys (HEA) exhibit unusual properties and are gaining interest as new materials for challenging applications in the aerospace, hypersonic and medical fields. The application of HEAs have been limited by the development of powder production at scale. A recently developed process of plasma spheroidization by 6K, inc. has...
Major psychotic disorders are one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, having severe impacts on the people who suffer from the conditions, their families and society. There is evidence that if these conditions are identified and treated early, the prognosis is improved. The purpose of this dissertation study is...
Post-tensioned (PT) self-centering shear walls were designed to reduce structural damage from seismic activity. However, these lateral force resistant systems experience post-tension loss negatively affecting the re-centering capability due to delayed deformations experienced by engineered wood products over time. The long-term mechanical response of mass-timber panels to in-plane PT loads...
The extent and severity of wildfires in forested regions are increasing throughout many regions on the planet, including western North America. High-severity wildfires directly affect soils and vegetation by altering soil hydraulic properties, reducing soil organic matter, exporting carbon and nitrogen, and killing trees and understory vegetation. These impacts can...
Vibrio bacteria are commonly found in freshwater, marine, and estuarine environments. Members of this genus can exist in commensal relationships with marine animals or as planktonic bacteria, however, they are well known for their roles as pathogens towards humans and animals. In this dissertation, I investigated aspects of host-bacteria relationships...
Hereditary variation is a vital component in the development of new and improved cultivars of landscape plants. Sources of hereditary variation include naturally occurring variation, recombination due to controlled crosses, artificial mutagenesis, and genetic modification via biotechnology. Here I explore all methods with the exception of genetic modification via biotechnology....
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...
Seagrasses and coral reefs play important roles in nutrient cycling, coastal protection, and maintaining marine biodiversity. However, these coastal marine organisms are declining globally due to anthropogenic stressors, such as rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and eutrophication. These organisms live in close association with their microbiomes, which can be beneficial...
In biology, function and disease are closely intertwined, requiring the coordination of hundreds of intricate chemical reactions. Interdisciplinary cooperation between chemical and biological approaches is necessary to decipher the chemical links between physiological and pathological conditions. In this arena, the precision tools made possible with chemical biology can manipulate and...
Current protein immobilization techniques lack defined control over protein orientation. Protein orientation is important for making biosensors and biomaterials that are sensitive and efficient and can be crucial for designing some devices such as immunosensors or direct electron transferring biocells. A new method of protein immobilization is proposed that takes...
Hibiscus and lilacs (Syringa spp.) are economically important nursery crops in the US that accounted for 4.5 million units ($30 million) and 2 million units ($20 million), respectively (USDA, 2016). To maintain and expand the market share of ornamental plants such as lilacs and Hibiscus, novel performance, floral ornamental value,...
A specific tyrosine post-translational modification, called 3-nitro-tyrosine (nitroTyr), has been known to be present on an essential calcium signaling protein called calmodulin (CaM) during oxidative stress. While protein-bound 3-nitro-tyrosine has long been considered a biomarker of OS, it is also hypothesized to be a mechanism for protein signaling. However, purification...
In this dissertation, we use Fourier-analytic methods to study questions of equidistribution on the compact abelian group Zp of p-adic integers. In particu- lar, we prove a LeVeque-type Fourier analytic upper bound on the discrepancy of sequences. We establish p-adic analogues of the classical Dirichlet and Fejér kernels on R/Z,...
Hemp is a dioecious, annual, flowering plant in the Cannabaceae family. It has been used for thousands of years to produce textiles, essential oils, and medicines. The overall purpose of these experiments was to propagate the cannabinoid-free cultivar, ‘I3’, and follow up by inducing polyploidy in the ‘I3’ hemp via...
The black vine weevil (BVW), Otiorhynchus sulcatus (F.) (Coleoptera:
Curculionidae) is a persistent pest of nursery operations in the United States,
feeding on over 140 species of plants. The goals of this research were to 1) assess
the behavioral response of BVW to a commonly employed insecticide bifenthrin
(Talstar 0.2G®)...
In the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for setting annual dose limits. For cases of hot particle contamination these limits are set at depths in skin of 7 mg/cm², 300 mg/cm², and 1000 mg/cm². However, at such shallow depths, the lack of charged particle equilibrium (CPE) precludes...
If P is an integer polynomial denote the degree of P by ∂(P) and let H(P) be the maximum of the absolute value of the coefficients of P. Define Λ(P)=2[superscript ∂(P)]H(P) and for a fixed prime p let C[subscript p] denote the completion of the algebraic closure of the p-adic...
Degeneration of the intervertebral disc (IVD) is a phenomenon that has yet to be adequately addressed. Treatment options remain limited and incomplete. The ability to effectively cryopreserve IVDs would allow for better allograft transplantations and storage of samples for research purposes. This study aimed to assess how cryopreservation with different...
In the area that is now Saguaro National Park East, grazing began in the 1880's. Because of the impact to the iconic saguaro cactus as well as all palatable plant species in the area, ecological damage in the park were determined to be so great that anti-grazing conservationists challenged the...
Successful cryopreservation of bone marrow in situ within vertebral bodies offers an opportunity for quick and convenient storage of a significant quantity of bone marrow stem cells, including hematopoietic- and mesenchymal-type stem cells. However, cryopreservation of more complex large tissues and organs, such as the vertebral body (VB), remains problematic....
The European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is a diploid (2n = 2x = 22) tree crop important to the economy of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where 99% of hazelnut production in the United States is located. Corylus avellana exhibits sporophytic self-incompatibility (SSI), controlled by a single S-locus with at least 33...
Prunus laurocerasus, commonly known as cherrylaurel, is a woody shrub grown in temperate climates for its durability and landscape appeal. Due to its abundance of drupes that are spread by birds, cherrylaurel is a litter nuisance in cultivation and also has escaped cultivation such that it has naturalized. Furthermore, it...
Kernel hardness (KHA) is a major factor determining break flour yield (BFY) and end-use quality of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Within the soft wheat class, genotypes with consistently softer grains than common soft wheat are considered to be 'extra-soft'. In addition, 'extra-soft' wheats have greater BFY than common soft...
Following European-American colonization of North America and associated landscape changes, barred owls (Strix varia) underwent a dramatic expansion of their historical range. The barred owl expanded across the previously tree-less Great Plains that had limited their distribution, and into the forests along the west coast. In these western forests they...
Oxo-hydroxo Group 5 metal clusters are an untapped resource to study and advance aqueous solution processing of metal oxide thin films. The tetramethylammonium (TMA) hexatantalate salt (TMA6[H2Ta6O19]) yields dense Ta2O5 films (~95% of the bulk ß-Ta2O5 density) with atomically smooth surfaces (<4 Å root mean square surface roughness). This same...
This thesis details my investigation of some pharmaceuticals and natural products on the transport of drugs which are substrates of P-glycoprotein (P-gp), such as cyclosporin A (CSA) and digoxin by using Caco-2 and MDCKII-MDR1 drug transport models. Three objectives were performed to address this goal. The first objective was to...
Analysis of alternative concepts has a significant impact on design project outcomes, and yet many design teams fail to consider a significantly broad range of conceptual solutions. Within the realm of conceptual design exists a technique called design by analogy (DBA) -- the practice of reapplying old solutions to new...
The function of a protein is defined by its three-dimensional structure, and in understanding the three-dimensional structure of a protein, we gain an understanding of its function and mechanism. Protein structures, especially at high resolution, can provide detailed insights into many elements of enzyme function and catalysis – identifying residues...
In watersheds across the American Pacific Northwest, changes in the cultural and regulatory landscape have increased pressure to restore and protect populations of anadromous fish. But restoration of anadromous fish populations constitutes a ‘wicked problem’, relentless in character, affecting diverse stakeholder groups, and defying ‘once and for all’ solutions (Weber...
The nearshore waters off the Oregon coast (< 73 meters) are a region of high productivity and economic value, with a variety of habitats that include rock outcrops. Temperate reef habitats are important to many commercially important fishes inhabiting the Pacific coast, including canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger) and yelloweye rockfish...
Transformation is a major bottleneck for genetic engineering and gene editing in forest tree species. This includes most genotypes of Populus and Eucalyptus, which are some of the world’s most widely-cultivated genera of plantation forest trees. To provide new tools for transformation, I tested the transcription factor-protein chimera consisting of...
Managers of forest and plantation ecosystems are encountering growing problems involving plant pathogens and the expanding geographic ranges of these pathogens. Historically unexposed stands are exceptionally vulnerable when a non-native pathogen is introduced because these pathogens can cause devastating disease in a host population that lacks co-evolved resistance mechanisms. One...
Implementation climate is the most proximal organizational predictor of implementation success. First-level supervisors are in a pivotal position to influence implementation climate, as they directly oversee frontline staff who deliver evidence-based interventions (EBIs). First-level supervisors who exhibit strong leadership and utilize best practices in supervision may be able to establish...
Semiconducting materials which can be ambipolarly doped are highly desirable in many electronics applications, including use as solar cell materials. SnZrS₃ is being investigated for the possibility of ambipolar doping, with potential applications as a solar cell absorber layer. This dissertation covers the synthesis of SnZrS₃ and the related compound...
Toxin production by cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) in freshwater systems has lasting ecological and human impacts. Nutrients, light availability, hydrology, and microbial community composition impact the frequency and intensity of toxic cyanoHABs. Climate change will exacerbate toxic cyanoHABs, making real time and predictive monitoring a vital tool for managing...
Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) is adapted to soils with high organic matter and acidic pH. Composts provide organic matter and nutrients for growing blueberry in mineral soils, but many composts are high in pH and soluble salts. Acidification with elemental sulfur (S°) can remedy high pH, but the process...
The three essays in this dissertation progressively answer the following questions: (a) How important are constraints? (b) Who benefits from removing constraints? (c) When does a constraint for a single market predominantly affect closely related markets? These questions are applied in the context of time, weather, and minimum wage constraints,...