Each community of scientists brings with it a set of values. Many of the urgent problems facing our planet require interdisciplinary science teams, but these teams often hold values that conflict. The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) offers templates and guidance designed to help interdisciplinary teams of scientists recognize and address...
The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers maintains a taxonomy of their discipline known as the Industrial and Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge, or ISEBoK. A previous Honors College thesis by Thomas William Murphy mapped the knowledge areas within the ISEBoK to the stages of a scientific endeavor, and concluded...
The increased severity of unseasonal drought conditions in the American Southwest have resulted in herbivorous species, like the desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni), receiving lower quality forage in their diet at less reliable frequency. The Mojave Desert and the Peninsular Mountain ranges also contain large variations in elevation, which...
The design of a novel Tabletop Role Playing Game was conducted with the aim to create a game system that provides both rigid rules and more creative outlets compared to existing games. The project focused on player-developed mystical abilities known as Spells, whereby the rule of the game guides the...
In the United States, rates of youth vaping are alarmingly high. In 2018, the U.S. Surgeon General declared youth vaping as an epidemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2022b). However, LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately affected. In 2021, current e-cigarette use among high schoolers was 16% with heterosexual students...
The types and rates of label noise in real-world data sets present a challenge to machine learning projects. In this thesis, we propose a novel approach to address this issue. Our method combines a noise modelling technique for correcting label noise across the entire data set with a robust loss...
Females do not seek out pelvic exams routinely, which can lead to an increase in undetected pelvic cancers. While there are studies depicting women’s perspectives during gynecological exams, there are not many compilations of negative experiences during pelvic exams with individuals of other identities and recommendations for providers. This scoping...
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 Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) catalyzes genome transcription repression through the methylation of lysine residue 27 in the amino terminal region of histone 3 (H3K27me1/2/3) [2], [7]. PRC2 is made up of three highly conserved core subunits: Kmt6, Eed, and Suz12. Accurate distribution of PRC2 is essential for proper...
Pantoea agglomerans pathovar betae (Pab) is a bacterium that causes galls on the roots of beet plants, resulting in reduced marketability of beet roots and crop loss. Pab uses a type III secretion system (T3SS) to infect and cause galls on beets. The T3SS is a molecular syringe-like structure that...
Food insecurity (FI) is a commonly understood issue in colleges including Oregon State University (OSU), yet examining FI yields deeper complexities of great interest. Food insecurity at OSU is a symptom in a greater complex of basic needs pressures experienced by students in the higher education system, including financial, social,...
Ubiquitous pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa coordinates population-wide activation of virulence genes through quorum sensing (QS), where individuals transition from solo to social behaviors to benefit the population. QS is complex and mechanisms vary from species to species, but the concept is common to the bacterial world and has implications in various...
This paper synthesizes various works Wang tiles up to this point, including: the reduction from the Halting Problem to Wang Tiling Problem and notions around various aspects of periodicity, including minimal period, aperiodicity, and axis-aligned periodicity. Additionally it includes new work, including: a proof that a tiling can be periodic...
Level measurement in liquid sodium systems has been studied in the U.S.’s past during the 1970’s, but locally little was done to advance the subject until a resurgence of interest in the last few years. As a result, to create a functional continuous fluid level measurement probe for the OSU...
Since the 1970s, the United States government has offered federal tax subsidies for employer-sponsored health insurance. The tax exclusions for contributions to Employer Sponsored Insurance (ESI) has become the largest subsidy for private health insurance. These tax subsidies make up 21.4% of our national healthcare expenditures and 1.4% of the...
Motivated by my own struggle to find identity and belonging as a transracial adoptee (TRA), I sought to fulfill two thesis purposes: 1) answer the question “How do transracial adoptees find and create identity and belonging in a contemporary United States culture and context?” and 2) establish a) a rationale...
Previous literature consistently demonstrates a link between binge drinking and sexual assault among college students. State alcohol control policies, particularly tax policies, are established as important predictors of college binge drinking but have not been examined in relation to sexual assault. This study used merged data on student demographics and...
In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began. This prompted quarantines, mask mandates, and stopped many businesses and services. This study asked the question of what people decided to do in terms of their recreation habits in response to the pandemic. We took a sample of Oregon State University...
Accurate estimation of water stress in vineyards could prove vital for optimizing irrigation and grape quality in a changing climate. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on the Space Station (ECOSTRESS) offers potential to remotely sense vineyard water stress but lacks validation against in-field measurements in vineyards. In this study,...
This study examines the relationship of ADHD with quality of life (QoL) and peer relations in college students. Specifically, this study analyzes how ADHD impacts QoL and peer relations and how other variables can impact these relationships. The current study was conducted through an online survey on Qualtrics which included...
Parenting is important to a child’s development of empathy. Specifically, parental warmth provides children with emotional connection and a model to learn how to manage their emotions and respond to others’ emotions. Yet warmth is just one dimension of parenting. Supportiveness may also be important but has not yet been...
There is high projected growth for STEM-based job fields; however, a significant barrier to students entering those fields is the requirement to take Introductory Calculus. This thesis summarizes the current research done to improve university level math education, specifically calculus courses. It then uses the MAA Instructional Practices Guide to...
Cyprinid herpesvirus 3 (CyHV-3), also known as koi herpesvirus (KHV), is a pathogenic and highly contagious virus that affects the Cyprinus genus. The mortality rate of the KHV infection is around 80-100%. KHV can become latent in the recovered koi and reactivate under stressful conditions. KHV can reactivate under various...
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a pervasive public health issue that continues to affect women globally. GBV is estimated to impact 37% of Botswanan women, exceeding the average global prevalence of 30%. This investigation takes place within the Botswana Global Health Initiative, a collaboration led by OSU researchers, the community of...
Loop quantum gravity is a framework for quantizing general relativity which imposes a discrete structure on space. In exploring the structure of loop quantum gravity, researchers have investigated loop quantum cosmology, a toy model with reduced degrees of freedom while maintaining a discrete space. Polymer quantum mechanics is a framework...
Ornithology is an exciting field with novel research emerging everyday. Researchers in bioacoustics often spend hours within the wilderness recording bird calls to analyze later in their lab. The burden of sifting through hours of audio recordings from the field continues to remain a time-consuming and manual task, despite the...
Red Crossbills (Fringillidae: Loxia curvirostra), irruptive finches which feed on conifer seeds, have long presented an evolutionary conundrum. Variable morphology and vocalizations in the species can be classified into several flight call types, which may be discrete lineages. The key conifer hypothesis suggests that each type diverged by specializing on...
In this work we introduce some basic concepts within homotopy type theory (HoTT), a proposed alternative mathematical foundation to classical set theory. In particular, our discussion revolves around the Axiom of Choice (AC). In Part I, we introduce the classical AC and some of its most important equivalents. In Part...
Acid whey is the largest byproduct of the dairy industry but to date has few useful applications and is frequently discarded as a result. However, acid whey has a high carbon content, making it a suitable co-substrate for anaerobic co-digestion with raw sewage sludge. The synergistic effect of co-digestion has...
We present a tool that converts any image into a painterly rendered one, or one that looks as though it was hand-painted. To do this, we implemented the Sobel filter to calculate the edge field that is used to create streamlines, which serve as the foundation for brush strokes. We...
Users curate music playlists based on emotion to focus or relax, so streaming services often create playlists of songs to aid this process. Prior research focuses on generating playlists of a single mood or genre, although a few studies work to construct automatic playlists that transition between the genres of...
With growing awareness of the negative impacts of the built environment, solutions for dramatic environmental, economic, and social improvements are sparking in all sectors, especially within the construction industry. The work of this thesis aims to quantify and compare social, economic, and environmental impacts of a three-story mass timber structure...
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...
As laws regarding medical and recreational cannabis use are changing across the United States, one must begin to understand the effects among individuals with chronic pain. Specifically, it is unclear how legalization may change their use of marijuana and opioids to self-medicate or for recreational use. To address these questions,...
The reason for reading for pleasure falling out of popular fashion is ambiguous, and there is an ongoing drive to identify the source in order to encourage more reading. I attempted to see if liking the books assigned to one in middle and high school had an effect on reading...
The aim of the study is to understand how a child’s responsibility of care for a family pet affects the attachment and relationship between the child and dog. Attachment has been defined as a bond between two individuals that promotes both proximity-seeking and independent activity (Udell and Brubaker, 2016). Responsibility...
Period poverty is the inability to access menstrual products and more generally the lack of knowledge surrounding menstruation. About one in ten undergraduates suffer from period poverty, a number that almost doubles for first-generation students (Haneman, 2021). Previous research and current legislation aimed at addressing period poverty largely revolve around...
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...
Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons are able to trigger the release of luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone which control the maturation of oocytes and ovulation which is vital for reproduction. They are the most downstream neurons that project to the median eminence into the pituitary portal where they release GnRH. Modulation...
The Bondwoman’s Narrative, the first novel written by an enslaved Black woman, borrows heavily from other texts and genres to investigate what freedom looks like in the context of slavery. Crafts rewrites characters, scenes, and plots, adapting them to her setting and placing herself as a heroine within them. Scholars...
Self-regulation, defined as one’s ability to control their behaviors, cognitions, and emotions, is an important factor for children’s social, behavioral, and long-term academic performance. Speech/language skills have long been theorized to be important factors in the development of self-regulation and have been linked to various developmental outcomes, particularly in the...
Fiction facilitates the attribution of unrealistic character traits to scientists, and skews general understanding of the scientific process-- a fatal flaw resulting in self-doubt within undergraduate scientists, and apprehension and distrust in several communities. Misconceptions and the absence of significant ideas were identified by analyzing novels within the “Lab Lit”...
This project uses field recordings to examine the levels of noise pollution present in both rural and urban areas by creating an artistic translation of these soundscapes, representative of how wild birds experience different environments. The field recordings capture not only what is present in a given soundscape, but what...
The detection of biomolecules is critical for clinical diagnostics but requires specialty labor and high cost. The use of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (µPADs) for bioassays is simpler and cheaper but has low sensitivity. Improved immobilization of antibodies onto cellulose is demonstrated through surface functionalization with APTES and glutaraldehyde. The...
Cobalamin (vitamin B12) is a water-soluble vitamin that plays a role as an indicator of gastrointestinal disease in dogs. In addition, supplementation of vitamin B12 to dogs deficient in cobalamin has been shown to improve clinical signs of intestinal disease.1,2 Low serum cobalamin has been found in dogs with food-responsive,...
The oceans are one of humanity’s greatest resources, providing food, raw materials, livelihoods, and protection. More than 3 billion people around the world rely on marine life as a source of protein as well as their livelihood. Seafood is one of the highest traded commodities globally and many major cities...
While the use of powered mobility devices for young children with mobility challenges has taken off in recent years following evidence that the use of powered mobility at a young age augments other traditional mobility skill interventions, the research is still limited and focuses on physical impacts more. Recently, the...
Food insecurity is a common issue among college students in the United States with recent research suggesting that between 10-75% of college students are food insecure. In comparison, an estimated 10.2% of U.S. Households are food insecure. Food insecurity is associated with many negative health outcomes. The purpose of this...
As coral reefs continue to experience decline from human-related stressors, the countless species that depend upon them for food and shelter are likely to follow, constituting a loss of one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Though laboratory studies of corals remain difficult, promising model organisms may hold...
Activism is the action of promoting and campaigning for political or social change and a growing concept in the United States for the past few decades. This has included a Civil Rights movement, a Disability Rights movement, gender equality movements, and other movements - activist groups have been pushing for...