Kombucha is a fermented sweet tea beverage of Asian origin which has become popular in the West due to its distinct flavor and possible health benefits. Kombucha is fermented by inoculating sweet tea with yeast and bacteria until a pellicle, referred to as a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and...
Our experiments aimed to investigate responses of the marine cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus to toxic arsenic species, such as arsenate, and to understand cellular mechanisms that contribute to arsenic tolerance. We used two strains of Prochlorococcus, a high-light adapted MED4 and low-light adapted MIT9313, both axenic, for cultivation experiments. For...
The spring bloom is a key oceanic phenomenon in the Northern Gulf of Alaska (NGA), where it supports the regional ecosystem, fisheries, and CO2 sequestration. Despite its significance, mechanisms that trigger NGA blooms are still debated, largely due to a lack of sufficient data from late winter through spring. New...
Wind energy is one of the fastest growing renewable forms of energy in the United States and the world. However, interactions between wind turbines and wildlife have the possibility to injure animals such as birds and bats. Strategies to assess and minimize wind turbine interactions with wildlife are critical for...
As the development, processing, and manufacturing of plastic has improved over the years, so has our amount of plastic waste. Currently, only approximately 9% of post-consumer plastics get recycled. The other 91% is buried in landfills, burned, ends up in the ocean, or is accumulating in communities without access to...
Tooth decay in the form of dental caries and cavities is estimated to be among the most common health conditions globally, with treatment of these oral diseases resulting in a massive, world-wide economic burden. The cause of this demineralization of teeth is rooted in the action of complex microbial biofilms...
Despite an increase in the number of people who rely on manual wheelchairs, there are still substantial economic barriers to affordable and accessible localization systems. As a result, there is a pressing need to build a versatile yet low cost localization system for manual wheelchairs. Such systems allow users to...
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...
Executive function (EF) is an extensively researched topic as a predictor for academic achievements for children. Delineated as qualities of self-regulation, EF prepares a child to produce successful behaviors for their learning and social environments. Entering school with sufficient self-regulation skills is proven advantageous for scholarly performance. Within the early...
The concepts of cancer and chemotherapy are not unheard of to children, but are often scary and confusing. This paper addresses the need for children’s books on difficult concepts (such as cancer), the creation of a script for a children’s book explaining chemotherapy on a cellular level, the creation of...
At the macroscopic scale, we have pumps that use the classical laws of physics to move liquids at a well defined rate. In the microscopic world, physicists are exploring pumps that make use of quantum mechanical behavior to build analogous pumps for quantum particles. The importance of such “quantum pumps”...
The corrosion and heat resistance properties of nickel alloys are hallmarks of their importance in infrastructure and industrial catalysis processes, but these properties are highly dependent on the chemical composition of the alloy surface. Density functional theory was used for analysis of surface oxidation of four combinations of chromium and...
There is significant evidence that an increase in social media usage causes changes to mood and feelings about the self. It has also been found that there is a significant relationship between the extent of social media usage consumption and self-perception. Mimicking social media exposure, I focused on how participants...
The electrical conductivity data of ceramic material at high temperatures can be useful in the application of modeling, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD). The existing data is considerably lacking at extreme temperatures. Our research focuses on bridging this gap by reporting the electrical conductivity measurements of sets...
Sonification, or the “technique of rendering sound in response to data and interactions” [1], is an alternative to visual graphs and has the potential to make data more interpretable and accessible. As a combination of the arts (music) and the sciences (data), sonification is an interdisciplinary tool for connecting people...
This thesis investigates the effect of participating in political activism on mental health. Participants (N = 187, 72% female, N = 135, 77% female) from an Oregon university were randomly assigned to one of three or four conditions (depending on the study) in which they participated in activism related to...
The “why” of any situation is one of the most important questions to ask. Inventors have ideas every day. Some ideas are the brilliant ideas that lead to a better tomorrow. To protect these ideas, inventors turn to patents, a governmental grant of the right to stop others, for a...
The present study was a program evaluation of KidSpirit that investigated how gymnastics coaches’ growth mindsets changed over an eight week period after a training intervention. A mixed-method approach was used to measure growth mindset and self-determination theory (SDT). There were three aims of this study: (1) participants would improve...
The use of genetic algorithms to compose music and generate sounds is an area of interest in the artificial intelligence field. Music and instrument sounds have known rules and structures that can be followed which make them well-suited for genetic algorithms. However, genetic algorithms still struggle to generate sounds comparable...
The development of simple, rapid, and sensitive methods for thiophenol detection is of great importance in various fields, including environmental monitoring and food quality. Here, we present a novel approach for the colorimetric detection of thiophenols using gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as the sensing platform. AuNPs aggregate in the presence of...
The dense Corvallis array deployed in January of 2022 aided in the high-resolution study of local geology. This array was made of 177 SmartSolo 3-component 5 Hz geophones around Corvallis, with a 93 geophone profile going west towards Bald Hill for approximately 5 km at an average of 64 m...
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is a Knowledge-belief-practice system acquired through intergenerational direct and indirect observations representing past and current understandings of environments and integrates Indigenous value systems. TEK has become a popular topic recently as Indigenous stewarded lands contain more biodiversity and are more adaptable. It is critical for Indigenous...
The present essay discusses themes of dehumanization and reliance on a biomedical model of care within U.S. psychiatric systems in treating individuals diagnosed with psychosis. This model is contrasted with alternative treatment approaches that are person-centered rather than disease-centered. These include Open Dialogue, Soteria, and Hearing Voices Movement. In the...
Over 37,000 people die each year in automobile accidents, with many of these fatalities resulting from collisions with emergency vehicles. The rise of autonomous cars creates the need for an accurate and failsafe method of detecting and responding to emergency vehicles safely and on time. This thesis investigates the ability...
Designs for improved cookstoves aim to decrease the detrimental environmental and health impacts that are associated with traditional biomass cooking practiced by nearly 40% of the global population. Programs to provide improved cookstoves are found worldwide, and regional testing centers support development of these through emissions testing services. Aprovecho Research...
Social media platforms use many techniques to engage users' attention with their platforms, including notifications, popups, and gamification elements. The impact of social media on physical and mental health has been studied, but limited publicly available research exists on how social media users can be helped to disengage from these...
This study investigates the evaluation of Return on Investment (ROI) in education from the perspective of high school students, introducing a theoretical model that encompasses both financial and non-financial aspects, with a primary focus on the unique insights provided by high school students. Drawing from a literature review and survey-based...
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...
Hydrogels have been attractive for use as a medium in porous flow studies,
but have always been limited in this role because of their poor mechanical properties.
This project analyzes and tests two recently developed hydrogels,
poly(methacrylamide-co-methacrylic acid) (PMM), and a heat-treated long chain
PVA hydrogel. Particle image velocimetry (PIV)...
Mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases are not completely understood in humans. Studying model organisms like Drosophila melanogaster, also known as the common fruit fly, can help humans better understand the aging process and diseases related to aging. From previous studies demonstrated in Drosophila, an accelerated aging model has been...
The purpose of this project is to assist the OSU Baja Racing vehicle in turning more sharply. This is done using a turning brake, which locks one rear wheel to facilitate turning on a smaller radius. This project focuses on the development of a custom cylinder housing for the turning...
Wildfires can create alternative pathways for forest development, and wildfires have expanded in size, frequency, intensity, and severity across the western United States. The purpose of this paper is to compare forest development of a mature Douglas-fir forest in western Oregon across fire severities. Postburn field measurements were collected in...
Scientists have long recognized that bees and other insects respond to floral color, including ultraviolet (UV) floral patterns that are invisible to the human eye. While previous research has focused on isolating and capturing these UV markings in laboratory settings, methods that could be used in natural settings needed to...
The Pacific Islander diaspora in the Pacific Northwest United States is a unique community characterized by diverse cultures, experiences, and motivations for migration. This study aimed to explore the narratives of individuals from different Pacific Islander backgrounds residing in Oregon, shedding light on their reasons for migration and the impact...
There are many possible benefits that can arise from the ability to take real-time measurements of soil water nitrate concentrations in a field, from ecological to agricultural to industrial reasons. In order to achieve this, we adapted a NitraLED sensor with a ceramic porous cup in order to allow diffusion...
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of community trust in state systems. Consideration of community concerns by public health agencies may help to establish more equitable policies, engaging community in emergency response and promoting inclusivity and trust. This paper outlines varying definitions of trust, then describes key considerations in...
Elie Wiesel’s Night has become a canonical work in the genre of Holocaust literature. This thesis examines the process by which Night achieved this status. An argument will be composed using, as evidence, analysis of Elie Wiesel’s life, the broad history of Holocaust literature, and the complexities surrounding Night’s publication...
Optimal commercial fishery management sustains each salmon species' population while maximizing economic benefits. This thesis addresses two questions. What are the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's and the Board of Fisheries' intentions when conducting a fishery management plan in Upper Cook Inlet? How does it compare to its implementation?...
This paper examines the recent evolution of aggrieved entitlement and social fragility in young white American males and the subsequent violent backlash that certain individuals in this group have unleashed upon women, the LGBTQ community, Jewish people, Black people, and other socially vulnerable populations. Throughout the past decade, America at...
This thesis includes a satirical novel and a short analytical reflection on the writing process and the general themes and takeaways from the novel itself. While the analytical reflection appears before the novel in the paper, they can be read in either order. The novel satirizes how people respond to...
This thesis presents innovative pedagogical approaches to teach fundamental Computer Science (CS) concepts, such as abstraction, representation, algorithms, and computation utilizing manipulatives, which are physical objects that students interact with to teach or reinforce a concept. Teaching and learning with manipulatives has a long history in science and mathematics education,...
Chlamydia possesses an immense importance within both human and animal medicine when looking at pathogens. Chlamydia trachomatis infections have been shown to affect both the eye and genital tracts in millions of humans and animals every year [13]. As C. trachomatis strains are highly conserved in patients, it has made...
Intuitively, it seems as though natural language processing tasks might benefit from explicit representations of the syntactic and semantic properties of text. Ontonotes is a dataset which attempts to annotate texts, to represent as much as possible of the meaning of the text explicitly within the annotation. Many tools exist...
In recent decades, the occurrence of large, high severity wildfires has increased substantially in many parts of the world, including the western United States. These fires have the potential to impact water quality, aquatic ecosystems, and downstream communities for many decades. As such, it is increasingly important to understand the...
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...
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 exists to protect the disabled community from discrimination in order to give people with disabilities the opportunity to live their lives to the fullest extent (What Is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? | ADA National Network, n.d.). When the ADA was signed...
Simulation has provided much design inspiration for the field of robotics. While many astute ideas can be computationally formulated, there are some good structures in animals that people call “biologically-inspired”. Many robots are designed based on natural creatures such as crabs, spiders, etc. Before we can take full advantage of...
The case of Mongolia’s democratization remains unexplained by the various theories of democratization and democratic consolidation. The purpose of this thesis is to consider the unique case of Mongolian democratization, how well this case is described by various theories of democratization and reach both a description of how Mongolia’s democratization...
This study looked at the impacts of climate change on medicinal plants, and how these impacts are viewed and understood in the herbalism community. Two literature reviews were conducted, to look at each of these two ideas: the first was a review of peer-reviewed literature describing research on climate change...
Water availability is a controlling factor in stream ecosystems with direct influences on habitat and aquatic ecosystem process, but little work has been done evaluating how biota respond to natural variations in low flow conditions during summer, and which biotic or abiotic features in the system may link most closely...