Spotted wing drosophila (SWD), Drosophila suzukii, is an economically damaging pest on small fruits. The estimated economic impact is hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the U.S. alone, and increasing every year. Current control of SWD relies heavily on chemical insecticides which have many negative impacts on environmental and...
The Columbia River delivers the greatest amount of freshwater to the coastal ocean along the U.S. Pacific coast. This freshwater forms the Columbia River plume, a mesoscale plume with significant implications on coastal ocean physical, biological, chemical, and geological processes. The plume is transported south and offshore during the upwelling...
In the U.S., childhood overweight and obesity has grown to epidemic levels. The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) found that nationwide, approximately 32% of children 10–17 years old are identified as overweight, over half of them (nearly 17%) are obese. This is a concern because these rates continue to...
The contribution of delayed adaptive reiteration to crown maintenance was explored across a wide range of adjacent open space conditions in early-mature (approximately 60 year old) Douglas-fir located on the eastern slope of Oregon’s Coast Range. The stands had experienced uniform thinning in 1964-65 and 1980-81 to release dominant and...
Offshore renewable energy (ORE) has the potential to be a significant source of future global electricity production, reduce carbon emissions, decrease dependence on energy importation, and stimulate economic growth in coastal and remote areas. The availability and abundance of ORE, paired with growing coastal population centers, position offshore wind, wave,...
Counselor educators have a responsibility to serve as effective gatekeepers to the counseling profession by graduating only those counselors professionally prepared to serve the public in a myriad of counseling roles. However, despite its importance and the extant literature, gatekeeping still seems poorly understood and inconsistently applied. Although the literature...
Traditional analysis in population genetics evaluates differences among groups of individuals and, in some cases, considers the effects of distance or potential barriers to gene flow. However, many forces may shape genetic variation of organisms in riverine systems. Similarly complex research linking habitat heterogeneity and configuration to genetic structure has...
Soft keyboards come in different shapes, sizes, and layouts. Each layout is designed to help the users in different inputting tasks. Most of these layouts, however, focus on general text entry as opposed to computer programs. This dissertation addresses the problems with current input mechanisms on touchscreen devices. The dissertation...
The range of different nonvolatile constituents extracted from hops in highly hopped beers suggests that iso-alpha acids may not be the sole contributor to beers’ bitterness. Among brewers producing hop-forward beer styles there is a growing concern that the Bitterness Unit (BU) is no longer an accurate predictor of beer...
In shared autonomy, a robot and human user both have some level of control in order to achieve a shared goal. Choosing the balance of control given to the user and the robot can be a challenging problem since different users have different preferences and vary in skill levels when...
Understanding groundwater flow in faulted and fractured rock is an important frontier in the field of environmental remediation and in the management of water resources. One example of a site where this is particularly evident is the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Ventura County, CA where environmental remediation activities...
Markov chains have long been used to sample from probability distributions and simulate dynamical systems. In both cases we would like to know how long it takes for the chain's distribution to converge to within varepsilon of the stationary distribution in total variation distance; the answer to this is, called...
This dissertation is divided into two major chapters. The first chapter covers the geologyof the Encuentro deposit with emphasis in the intrusion sequence, vein mineral assemblages and distribution, and age of mineralization. The data used for this section includes field mapping, petrography, elemental analysis of biotite, and isotopic geochronology. The...
The trend towards higher resolution, faster refresh rate active-matrix liquid-crystal displays (AMLCDs) as well as the emergence of active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays is driving the demand for amorphous oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors (AOS TFTs) with higher mobility. A physics-based model for carrier transport in an amorphous semiconductor is...
Every year thousands of people are killed or injured in work zone crashes in the US due to excessive speed, distraction, inattentiveness, low visibility, and other factors. Roadway construction and maintenance operations often occur at night when the traffic volume is low, creating less congestion and delay to the traffic....
Approximately 2700 years ago, Greek settlers from the Northwestern Peloponnese region of Achaea emigrated to the central coast of Southern Italy along the Gulf of Taranto. The city they founded, Metapontum, served as an important center for Magna Graecia, the lands on the Southern Italic peninsula wholly populated by Hellenic...
This work presents a new data encoding scheme: Integrated Pulse Width Modulation (iPWM) for equalizing lossy wireline channels with the aim of achieving energy efficient wireline communication. The proposed scheme is able to overcome the fundamental limitations imposed by Manchester and Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) encoding on high data rate...
Mycobacterium avium subspecies hominissuis (MAH) is an opportunistic pathogen that is ubiquitous in the environment and often isolated from faucets and showerheads. MAH mostly infects humans with an underlying disease, such as chronic pulmonary disorder (COPD), cystic fibrosis (CF), or are immunocompromised, though infections in patients without concurrent disease are...
Forest managers are challenged to restore resilience to forests with an elevated risk of stand-replacing fire by using mechanical thinning and prescribed fire. Implementation of these methods can be constrained by mandates to conserve sensitive wildlife species like the Pacific marten (Martes caurina). Martens avoid simplified forest stands created by...
The hydrologic function of a landscape is an important concept for understanding the presence, movement and availability of water. The Camp Creek Paired Watershed Study (CCPWS) site in Central Oregon has been utilized to investigate the impacts of western juniper on watershed hydrologic function since 1993. The research presented here...
The increasing demand for higher data-rates in spectrum-deficient indoor WiFi networks calls for the adaptation of hybrid systems, consisting of RF and optical wireless channels. The novel hybrid WiFi Free-Space Optical (WIFO) system was introduced to enhance the wireless capacity of indoor WiFi networks. In this thesis, an optical wireless...
This dissertation works towards determining the mechanisms driving the Mo isotopic composition of soils, and how these signals may be used to refine the use of Mo as a proxy of biogeochemical processes. The first step towards quantifying Mo fractionation in soils is to determine the mechanisms controlling Mo accumulation,...
This thesis is separated into three distinct projects. First, synthetic studies towards the furanosteroid viridin shown in part I. Second, synthetic studies towards the diperene obtusanal shown in part II. Third, the analysis, characterization, and synthesis of coronene derivatives towards their application in organic batteries shown in part III. Significant...
The Mars Hopper is an alternative extraterrestrial vehicle for the collection of samples from the Martian surface. This thesis studied the engine of the Mars Hopper to assess the validity of the current planned launch cycle according to current parameters. To do this, the engine was simplified to an average...
Missing data is one of the major methodological problems in longitudinal studies. It not only reduces the sample size, but also can result in biased estimation and inference. It is crucial to correctly understand the missing mechanism and appropriately incorporate it into the estimation and inference procedures. Traditional methods, such...
Fungi play critical roles in ecosystem processes and interact with plant communities in mutualistic, pathogenic, and commensal ways. Fungal communities are thought to be influenced by both associated tree communities and soil properties. However, the relative importance of the biotic and abiotic drivers of soil fungal community structure and diversity...
Mobile video streaming has become an essential application in mobile wireless networks,making up most of the mobile data of today’s Internet traffic. Studies have shown that mobile video data is projected to make up about 78 percent of the global mobile data traffic, and that global mobile data traffic is...
Dynamic modeling is key to the successful operation and reliability of electrical grids by evaluating transient stability. Developing dynamic load models and identifying where they are necessary is a challenging task as loads are an aggregation of individual devices that change throughout the year. This thesis investigates how to develop...
Management goals for restoring populations of the federally-threatened northern spotted owl currently include experimental lethal removals of barred owls from demographic study areas within the overlapping ranges of the two species to examine northern spotted owl population response. As lethal removals of a bird species are time- and cost-intensive, predictive...
Vibrio parahaemolyticus is frequently isolated or detected from raw seafoods, especially shellfish. Also, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp. are pathogens that are frequently found in ready-to-eat (RTE) seafood, such as smoked fish and shellfish, seafood salad, cooked shrimp and crabmeat, and seafood consumed raw. Two studies to improve safety in RTE...
Turbines at wind projects pose a threat to birds and bats flying at altitudes within the rotor swept area. These animals die from colliding with the turbine blades. Estimating mortality, or the total number of bird or bat fatalities at a wind project, is critical to understanding environmental impacts of...
The number of women in doctoral programs is increasing each year and women now comprise the majority of doctoral students in America (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Previous research has shown the high levels of complexities and stresses that female doctoral students face during their studies (Mallinckrodt & Leong,1992) and...
Mathematical modeling plays a pivotal role in understanding the mechanism of radiation-induced cellular effects, and also in quantifying the radiation risk to the cell. However, there are still compelling challenges facing the conventional modeling in radiobiology, such as lacking a generalized theory structure of quantifying target effect and non-target effect...
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are one of the most commonly used animal models in biomedical research. Zebrafish resource facilities, like the Zebrafish International Resource Center (ZIRC) in Eugene, Oregon, are the main providers and keepers of numerous zebrafish wild-type, mutant, and transgenic lines. Although ZIRC maintains live zebrafish at various life...
For spatial data visualization, we approach two problems and provide solutions: heat map resolution selection, and heat map confidence interval presentation. Analysts often present spatial data in gridded heat maps, at some chosen resolution. However, many data types vary in density across the domain. We develop variable-resolution heat maps to...
Cancer risk at low-dose ionizing radiation has been the subject of great scientific controversy in the past century. The clear majority of national and international radiation protection regulators adopt the linear no-threshold (LNT) model based on the atomic-bomb survivors Life Span Study (LSS) for solid cancer risk assessment. The LNT...
The Brownian motion of micron-scale particles reflects the viscoelastic response of the local environment of the medium. Tracking the thermal fluctuations of these particles is a measure of the rheology of the material at the microscopic scale. This technique is called passive microrheology. Microrheology has been developed to assess the...
In this study, I seek to examine undergraduate STEM majors’ beliefs about and attitude towards mistakes in the context of counting. This is a particularly fruitful setting for such an investigation both because combinatorics is widely applicable to various fields such as physics, biology, chemistry, and computer science (Kapur, 1970),...
The photophysical properties of two-dimensional (2D) layered van der Waals (vdW) materials, and their heterostructures are manifestly distinct from crystalline bulk materials. Recently, the discovery of new 2D vdW materials and strongly-bound interlayer excitons in these materials has created a new branch in nanoscience. As such, there are a number...
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,...
Ornamental landscapes require considerable amounts of inputs, including but not limited to irrigation, mowing or pruning, fertilization, and pest management. However, school systems have limited budgets, which reduce their access to resources and labor hours. Therefore, the objective of this project is to identify ground covers that can compete with...
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) bans all nuclear explosion tests for military or civilian purposes. The International Monitoring System (IMS) was established to verify compliance with the treaty. It consists of several monitoring stations that detect: seismic activities, hydrocoustic activities, infrasound waves, and radionuclide particles and noble gases. Radioxenon detection...
Traditional electronic systems are usually fabricated via printed circuit boards (PCBs). In a regular PCB, the electronic components are placed and mounted on a two-dimensional board. Such a component layout limits the freedom in the component placement process which results in larger electronic devices. With the use of Additive Manufacturing...
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of environmental contaminants consisting of fused benzene rings. Parent-PAHs, methylated-PAHs (MPAHs), and PAHs with molecular weight of 302 a.m.u (MW302-PAHs) are considered as unsubstituted-PAHs. These unsubstituted-PAHs undergo transformation reactions resulting in the formation of PAH-transformation products (PAH-TPs), or substituted-PAHs, including nitrated-, oxygenated-, and...
In the light of the changing climate, the importance of designing effective watershed management plans that are likely to be implemented is becoming ever more important. This research introduces a new concept, consensus, for incorporation into stakeholder-guided interactive optimization of watershed management plans. User preferences were mathematically simulated based upon...
Several frequency and amplitude estimation algorithms are presented for balanced and unbalanced three-phase power grid systems. All the estimators are dynamic in nature and are implemented in the complex domain by transforming the three-phase power signals using Clarke’s transform. Specifically, we first construct a non-linear dynamic model of the complex...
This project examines the production histories of two films that Alfred Hitchcock directed, his Hollywood debut Rebecca (1940) and the memorable Psycho (1960). The first chapter explores how Hitchcock succeeded and failed at influencing the picture as he, despite directing the movie, had to follow the vision that his producer,...
Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUASs) equipped with optical sensors are capableof remotely sensing landscapes and wildlife at spatial and temporal resolutions that werepreviously inaccessible due to technical and budgetary limitations. Conventional remotesensing and photogrammetric workflows can be applied to the resulting high resolution imageryto facilitate new types of scientific inquiry....
Physical experimentation in various scientific and engineering areas continues to be a useful and often necessary approach that is applied in research, development, and for general problem solving. The experimental design process however, is iterative and often involves trial and error. Alternative designs are proposed and evaluated on cost and...
Sepsis is an inflammatory reaction occurring throughout the human body to infections caused by bacteria, fungi, and or other forms of pathogens. It is essential to find an alternative treatment method for sepsis, to lessen the dependence on antibiotics. Hemoperfusion is an absorbent device that removes select targets from blood,...