Cnidarians, such as anemones and corals, engage in an intracellular symbiosis with
photosynthetic dinoflagellates. Corals form both the trophic and structural foundation of
reef ecosystems. Despite their environmental importance, little is known about the
molecular basis of this symbiosis. In this dissertation we explored the cnidariandinoflagellate symbiosis from two perspectives:...
Dissolution profiles of two commercial products (Motrine and Rufen®) were analyzed and compared at 8 pH levels, ranging from pH 2.0 to pH 8.0. It was demonstrated, as expected, that the rate and extent of ibuprofen dissolution dissolution was pH dependent. In vitro dissolution characteristics of the ibuprofen solid dispersion...
Intracellular symbioses between cnidarians and dinoflagellates from the genus Symbiodinium are widespread throughout the marine environment. These associations are ecologically significant, especially in tropical waters where symbiotic interactions between corals and Symbiodinium culminate in the formation of limestone reefs. This thesis focuses on cellular and molecular aspects of the symbiosis,...
The overall focus of this thesis is on the distribution of specific lipids and membrane proteins of the external and internal membranes of plant cells, in the context of the roles that those lipids and proteins may play in microbe-plant interactions. The work includes the development of several new tools,...
The intracellular mutualism between cnidarians and photosynthetic dinoflagellates (genus Symbiodinium) is responsible for the physical and trophic structure of diverse coral reef ecosystems. This relationship, based on nutrient exchange, allows for high productivity in tropical waters, which are generally nutrient-poor environments. Numerous environmental stressors currently threaten the health of corals,...
Many female undergraduate students engage in disordered eating, an umbrella term for sub clinical behaviors such as food restriction, binge eating, over exercising, and general preoccupation with food, weight, and body. Depending on the type of behavior and the length of time engaged with the behavior, disordered eating behaviors can...
The assessment of optimum nitrogen (N) fertilizer need for winter wheat (Triticum
aestivum L.) is important for economic and environmental sustainability. A comprehensive understanding of fertilizer N requirement depends on estimation of the quantity of N needed by the crop versus that supplied by soil.
The objectives of this study...
Sulfur-coated urea (SCU) is a slow release nitrogen fertilizer
manufactured by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Urea granules are
sprayed with molten sulfur, then holes in the sulfur coating are sealed
with a layer of wax sealant. The sulfur coatings are mixtures of
amorphous and crystalline allotropes of sulfur. Coating thickness...
Riparian ecosystems, through their unique positions in the agricultural landscape, have the potential to mitigate nutrient loading to streams. This study was conducted to gain a better understanding of N cycling in a poorly drained Grass Riparian Zone (GRZ) and adjacent Perennial Ryegrass seed Field (PRF) in the Willamette Valley,...
The ecology of female mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) and their
broods was studied during 1988-90 on Lower Klamath National Wildlife
Refuge, California. Survival of 127 radio-marked ducklings from 64
broods was 0.18 to 10 days of life, and 0.37 and 0.34 to fledging for
1988, 1989, and 1990, respectively. For the...
Systems biology is a powerful approach which considers and sheds light on all of the puzzle pieces which make up complex biological processes, and is an effective alternative to unraveling these processes using traditional molecular approaches alone. It is a natural companion approach for computational biology, which leverages the power...
The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm brought an ever-increasing dependence on low-power devices to collect sensor data and transmit that information to the cloud, placing greater demand on connectivity and lifespan. In response, rapid worldwide innovation demonstrates the trade-offs in processing, communication, and energy consumption with diverse approaches to low-power...
Mutualistic associations between cnidarians, such as corals, and photosynthetic
dinoflagellate algae provide the trophic and structural foundation of coral reef
ecosystems. In many cases, this intracellular mutualism is highly specific and must be
established anew for each generation of host corals. The ability to maintain partner
specificity across generations implies...
Meadowfoam (Limnanthes alba Bentham; Order: Brassicales; Family: Limnanthaceae) is a self-compatible, predominantly allogamous, insect pollinated species. Meadowfoam oil is a source of novel unsaturated very-long-chain (VLC) seed oils (C₂₀ and C₂₂) with low concentrations of saturated fatty acids (typically less than 2%) and outstanding oxidative stability. Here we report the...
Background: Prenatal care (PNC) is an important preventive health service that can influence the health of the four million women who give birth annually in the United States, and the health their infants. Despite efforts to increase women’s access to PNC services, significant disparities in PNC utilization and maternal/child health...
The semi-arid regions of the Pacific Northwest are
characterized by a high degree of annual temperature and
precipitation variation. As a result of this climatic
variation, dryland nitrogen fertilizer trials on fallow-
,wheat rotations typically demonstrate a variable response.
Wheat growers in the area must not only cope with this...
The cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus L., x=17) is one of the most important annual oilseed crops in the world. There are very few publicly shared sequence-based DNA markers and genetic maps in sunflower, even though molecular DNA markers and genetic maps have become widely used in all areas of genetic...
The effect of planting density and nitrogen (N) fertilization on growth, yield, and N partitioning in young and mature 'Bluecrop' blueberry plants was studied over a two year period. Depleted 15N-ammonium sulfate was applied at different rates and on different dates in a mature planting, and at different rates in...
Uptake and cycling of nitrogen (N) in mature trees are not well understood.
Fertilizer-N uptake, partitioning, and use-efficiency were studied in standard strain
'Topred Delicious' and spur strain 'Redspur Delicious' mature apple trees {Malus
domestica Borck) on 'Malling 7A' (M.7A) rootstocks. The treatments consisted of a
ground application in spring,...
Orchard floor management (OFM) practices can improve soil function and alter
the soil biological community. Soil function is dependent on soil forming materials and
on management practices but little is known about how OFM affect orchard soil quality,
fertilizer N uptake, or tree growth and production.
Research plots were located...
Background. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social-communicative deficits and restricted and repetitive behaviors, interests, or activities (APA, 2013). While current estimates suggest 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with ASD, more alarming statistics indicate 1 in 50 school-aged children live with the disorder (Blumberg, Bramlett, Kogan,...
In a comparison of the mammalian and fish immune systems many similarities and differences are found. While most of the differences occur in the acquired or lymphoid arm of immunity, the nonlymphoid immune systems of fish and mammals share many similarities. For instance, both animal groups use phagocytic neutrophils and...
Lasting, effective solutions to nitrogen (N) loss from container nurseries must
address layers of complexity ranging in scale from whole system nursery management
to gene expression. Group-based On-site Active Learning (GOAL) was developed to
aid nursery managers and related stakeholders (e.g. neighbors, policy makers,
regulating agencies, researchers) in developing a...
The dynamics of N was studied in field grown Comice/Provence
quince BA29 pears in Medford, Oregon. Total tree biomass, N content,
and ¹⁵N evaluations suggest that young pears require little N (48 kg
N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). About 45% of total tree N present in dormant trees was
remobilized into new...
Rotating wheat with other crops is a common practice in the Willamette Valley of
western Oregon. Depending upon previous crop and soil type, current N fertilizer
recommendations for wheat in the Willamette Valley vary widely. Excessive fertilizer
poses environmental risk, whereas lower N inputs than required by the crop represent...
Superwarfarins are anticoagulant rodenticides that are 100 times more potent and 15 times more persistent than warfarin. They have been used since the 1980s and cause over 10,000 cases of accidental and intentional poisonings per year. Apart from inducing uncontrollable bleeding, by inhibiting the vitamin K cycle, superwarfarins can disrupt...
The concentration of ascorbic acid in the plasma was determined on
four levels of ascorbic acid intake for seven day periods in 1946-47 and
on three levels of ascorbic acid intake for ten day periods in 1947-48.
The subjects, eight girls and eight boys, were 16 to 19 year old...
Small broomrape (Orobanche minor) is an obligate, chlorophyll-lacking parasite that parasitizes red clover (Trifolium pratense) roots. This study was conducted to develop and implement an integrated, biologically based control program for small broomrape by using wheat as a false host to reduce the soil seed bank. The relationship between temperature...
Treatment providers seek low-cost, high-impact means of engaging clients in care with the aim to enhance treatment delivery and outcomes. With improvements to mobile technology making cell phone accessibility and usage rates high across all socio-economic levels, text messaging is becoming more frequently utilized as a means of promoting provider-client...
Symbioses between microbes and multicellular eukaryotes are found in all biomes, and encompass a spectrum of symbiotic lifestyles that includes parasitism and disease, commensalism, and mutually beneficial interdependent host-microbe relationships. Regardless of outcome, these symbiotic lifestyles are governed by a complex molecular "courtship" between microbe and potential host. This courtship...
Nitrogen availability in agricultural soils from fertilizer, plant residue inputs, and soil organic matter has important implications beyond crop yield. Legume winter cover crops and one fourth the recommended N rate on sweet corn resulted in yields equivalent to those at the recommended rate in the Willamette Valley of western...
Soils are the largest terrestrial pool of carbon, therefore it is critical to understand
what controls soil carbon efflux to the atmosphere in light of current climate uncertainty.
The primary efflux of carbon from soil is soil respiration which is typically categorized
into autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration. These two components...
3D vector tomography has been explored and results have been achieved in the last few decades. Among these was a reconstruction formula for the solenoidal part of a vector field from its Doppler transform with sources on a curve. The Doppler transform of a vector field is the line integral...
Sulfur-coated urea (SCU), a slow release nitrogen fertilizer,
may be economically competitive with conventional fertilizers, but
little is known of the mechanism of urea release from SCU and the
environmental factors which affect the urea release rate. Objectives
of this thesis were: (1) to determine factors which affect the rate...
The blood thiamine concentration of 11 subjects was determined
by means of the Friedemann and Kmieciak (1943) method every 5 days
during a 30-day experimental period. Study I was conducted on 5
students in 1947 and Study II was conducted on 6 students in 1948.
The subjects in both studies...
Attention to the benefits of mindfulness practice transcends the fields of mental health and medicine. Extensive research has explored the use of mindfulness-based practices in counseling and psychotherapy. Benefits of mindfulness practice, both during session and in cases in which mindfulness was only practiced by the therapist outside of session,...
This dissertation describes patterns in epiphytic macrolichen community composition along a nitrogen deposition gradient in the Yosemite region of the Sierra Nevada in California. This region is part of the largest federal air quality Class 1 designated air-shed in the western United States, covering the entire crest of the Sierra...
Early childhood is a crucial time for the holistic development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical needs to build a solid and broad foundation for lifelong wellbeing and learning (Irwin et al., 2007). During this critical period, there is an increased demand for motor skills and executive function...
Soil respiration, or the combined CO₂ emissions from roots and soil microorganisms, constitutes one of the largest losses of carbon (C) from terrestrial ecosystems. The major drivers of soil respiration, which include soil moisture, temperature, and substrate quality, have been known for some time. Nevertheless,
correlations between these drivers and...
Three closely related isolates belonging to the A₁ serotype of infectious pancreatic
necrosis virus (IPNV) were selected for comparison, to provide insight into the nature of
variation in the virulence of IPN viruses. Brook trout fry (Salvelinus fontinalis) were
experimentally infected with the three isolates by immersion. Cumulative mortalities over...
The ethyl acetate extract of the culture filtrate of the marine Ascomycete,
Leptosphaeria oraemaris (Linder) yielded a novel metabolite
designated by the common name leptosphaerin. An x-ray crystallographic
structure analysis was disproved by the synthesis of 3-acetoxy-S-(1,2-dihydroxyethyl)-
3-pyrrolin-2-one 1, starting with N,N-dibenzylhydroxylamine
47 and D-mannitol 44. Oxidation of 47 followed...
To determine the impact of emerging environmental contaminants on human and environmental health, quantitative analytical methods are required. Analysis of emerging contaminants is hampered by their widely varying physical-chemical properties. Therefore quantitative analytical methods must be developed to determine the behavior of emerging contaminants in environmental systems.
A quantitative analytical...
Symbiosis is the close and protracted interaction between organisms. The molecular interactions that occur during symbiosis are complex with multiple barriers that must be overcome. Many Gram-negative, host-associated bacteria use a type III secretion system to mediate associations with their eukaryotic hosts. This secretion system is a specialized apparatus for...
Background: All health systems struggle with unlimited needs for health care, yet limited resources with which to address them. Under national health insurance systems, policymakers must make explicit and potentially contested decisions around resource allocation. Policymakers have recognized the need to include public values in decisions of how to distributing...
Oxidative stress is defined as an imbalance that favors the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) over an organism's antioxidant defense. ROS have the ability to damage, either directly or indirectly, biomolecules including DNA, proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids. Various pathological conditions and environmental and chronic diseases have been associated with...
This dissertation consists of two essays that address code-sharing alliances in the U.S. domestic airline industry.
The first essay examines the economic impact of code-sharing using data from the complementary code-sharing agreement between Southwest and ATA Airlines. This code-share agreement is found to decrease air fares and increase passenger volumes...
Estimating volume gains in genetically improved stands at rotation age is challenging because first-generation progeny tests in Douglas-fir were typically established to measure the relative growth performance of individual trees from open-pollinated parent trees. The overall goal of this dissertation research was to improve growth simulation of genetically improved Douglas-fir...
The links between forests, streamflow, and climate are poorly understood. Despite hundreds of studies over the past 60 years, fundamental questions of forests' effects on the hydrologic cycle remain unanswered. The hydrological cycle involves mutually-dependent biological and physical processes that operate at multiple scales of time and space, and this...
Cultivated meadowfoam (Limnanthes alba Benth.) is an annual oil seed crop native to southern Oregon. California and British Columbia. The genus Limnanthes is composed of nine species and divided into two sections, Inflexae and Reflexae. The seed oil of meadowfoam is a rich source of erucic acid and several novel...
This dissertation re-examines the now standard perceptual model of hillslope
hydrological response to rainfall, which includes the growth of a saturated wedge at the soil-bedrock interface or impeding layer. It also challenges the notion of bedrock impermeability and the assumption that the pattern of subsurface stormflow is determined by the...
Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a primary cause of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer and thus represents a critical public health concern. Skin cancer risk behavior research lacks an instrument designed to assess health beliefs about UV exposure that may increase skin cancer risk by increasing risky UV exposure...
PART I. The preparation of (-)-ibogamine (1) in fourteen steps from benzoquinone and in 10% overall yield is a powerful illustration of the value of the asymmetric Diels-Alder reaction as a starting point in a multistep synthesis. All four cycloadducts, 70, 77, 84 and 96, obtained with the (S)-BINOL-TiCl₂ complex...
Young children with developmental disabilities (< 12 years old) participate less in physical activity (PA) and experience motor skill deficits compared to young children without disabilities (Jung, Leung, Schram, & Yun, 2018; Liu, Hamilton, Davis, & ElGarhy, 2014; Whyatt & Craig, 2012). When taking account of a bi-directional relationship between...
The transition of mature pollen to the progamic phase represents an important step in the regulation of plant sexual reproduction. The progamic phase encompasses the initiation of pollen tube germination, growth of the pollen tube through the stigma (the silk in maize) and concludes with fertilization of the female gametophyte....
Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide with human papillomavirus (HPV) being the main cause of the disease. Currently available treatment methods are limited and emphasize the need for discovery of new therapies that improve patient outcome. Chromosomal amplifications have been identified as a source of...
This investigation was concerned with the reduction of
waste in raw vegetables and fruits between the times of harvest
and consumption. Reduction of spoilage in produce was attempted
by means of chemical and. physical agents as well as a combination
of both.
The first phase of the work consisted of...
Pacific Northwest and California freshwater resources are key elements in the life history and ecology of Pacific salmon and steelhead listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Risk to listed Pacific salmonid species can be assessed by evaluating the spatial and temporal co-occurrence of salmonid species at...
Increasing costs for wastewater treatment provide incentives to
evaluate system alternatives, especially among small communities with limited
financial resources. Land treatment systems with hybrid poplar tree
plantations are becoming increasingly popular as one such alternative in the
Pacific Northwest.
Land treatment systems are made up of a complex dual system:...
The study reported in this thesis is part of an investigation designed to determine the metabolism of thiamine and riboflavin in human subjects who were maintained on controlled diets. Part of this investigation was made during a 30-day experimental period in 1950 and the other part, during a 30-day experimental...
A mathematical model was developed to predict the absorption
rate of a slightly soluble gas entrained by a plunging liquid jet. The
single parameter of the model, the transfer factor, TF, was defined
as the summation of the product of the mass transfer coefficient and
interfacial area over all the...
Oomycetes are some of the most devastating pathogens, causing upwards of billions of dollars of damage each year to plants. They also diminish ecological diversity and health through the destruction of trees and shrubs. The genome sequence of Pseudoperonospora cubensis, an obligate plant pathogen and causative agent of downy mildew...
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship
between managing emotions scores and the variables of education level, affiliation,
number of relationships, commitment to relationships, and parental
divorce.
The instrument used in the study was the Iowa Development
Inventory-B with questions added to measure behavior relative to...
Levels of ⁶⁵Zn in water, sediments, plants, and animals in
Alder Slough, a small ecosystem in the Columbia River Estuary,
were determined periodically during a one year period. Concentrations
of total Zn in organisms were also measured to permit
computation of specific activities (μCi⁶⁵Zn/g total Zn). Temporal
fluctuations in the...
Oxidative dysfunction can affect dairy animals during periods of heightened stress, particularly during the transition from pregnancy to lactation and during diseases, such as intramammary infection (IMI), and can contribute to increased inflammation, immune dysfunction, and cell death. As such, methods for ameliorating oxidative stress and restoring redox regulation may...
The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, caused by the Gram-negative bacterium and obligate human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae, remains a significant health and economic burden worldwide. In the absence of a protective vaccine, antimicrobial agents are the only pharmacological intervention for patients with gonorrhea. However, due to the remarkable ability of gonococcus...
Health effects stemming from animal feeding operations pollution in the contiguous United States are analyzed using a 20-year, county-level data set. Several quasi-experimental, potential outcome models are used to estimate the impact of high concentrations of animal units on mortality rates and other health and economic outcomes over a 20-year...
The Southern Ocean plays an important role in the ocean’s uptake of heat and carbon yet the processes controlling this uptake are not well understood. To date, more than 100 biogeochemical profiling floats that measure water column pH, oxygen, nitrate, fluorescence, and backscattering at 10-day intervals have been deployed throughout...
...............................................................................................71
4.8 Surface and subsurface (200 m) SOCCOM float-based climatological seasonal
cycles in
Drought and mandatory water restrictions are limiting the availability of irrigation water in many important blueberry growing regions and new strategies are needed to maintain yield and fruit quality with less water. Three potential options for reducing water use, including deficit irrigation, irrigation cut-offs, and crop thinning, were evaluated for...
State-of-the-art, high-resolution mass spectrometry techniques for acquisition of metabolomic and lipidomic data coupled with advanced computational methods provide new opportunities for interpreting large and complex datasets and comprehending the underlying biological processes of diseases. Both metabolomics and lipidomics strive to obtain comprehensive analyses of small molecules, i.e., metabolites and lipids,...
Secure two-party computation (2PC) is the task of performing arbitrary calculations on secret inputs provided by two parties, while maintaining secrecy if at least one party is honest. 2PC has been applied to privacy-preserving record linkage and machine learning, in areas such as medicine where maintaining privacy is crucial. One...
In this dissertation, we propose Ideal Thumbnail-Preserving Encryption (Ideal TPE), as a special case of format-preserving encryption, to balance image privacy and usability concerns in a cloud environment. We first introduce a concrete construction for Ideal TPE, that provably leaks nothing about the plaintext (unencrypted) image beyond its thumbnail. We...
Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is the causative agent of Johne's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects ruminant populations worldwide. The characteristic stages of the disease make diagnosis difficult, resulting in silent transmission among animals in a herd for years before proper detection of the infection. The extensive...
Background:
The number of people diagnosed with chronic physical conditions is increasing in the United States. Chronic mental illnesses are also common in the country. Low-income women and those on Medicaid bear a disproportionate burden of chronic conditions and these conditions significantly contribute to obstetric morbidity. Prioritizing preventive measures and...
The virulence of selected isolants of infectious hematopoietic
necrosis virus (IHNV) were differentiated and correlated with
electrophoretic mobilities of virion structural proteins by sodium
dodecylsulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. A type 1
electropherotype of IHNV was more virulent for kokanee salmon
(Oncorhynchus nerka) and a type 2 strain more virulent for...
Metabolomics has recently gained momentum in biomolecule research and complements the genomics and proteomics research space. Metabolomics strives to detect, identify, and quantify all metabolites present in biological samples. In particular, biomolecular analysis using ultra-performance liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) has become increasingly important for metabolomic analyses. Similarly,...
Arctic warming is exposing thawing permafrost to repeated freeze-thaw, a disruptive process that can alter soil biogeochemistry and physical structure. To investigate the impact of permafrost exposure to freeze-thaw, soil response was tested across three scales: 2.5 cm³ aggregates, a forested hillslope, and two sites at contrasting latitudes. XCT imaging...
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the leading organization for monitoring nuclear facilities worldwide, and the Agency’s methods are constantly developing and improving in an effort to more effectively safeguard nuclear material. As such, the IAEA addresses near and long term risks in order to advance the capabilities of...
In the environment, it is the unbound fraction of chemical (Cfree) which is able to diffuse across environmental interfaces and biological membranes. It is therefore Cfree which drives many important biological-environmental processes including contaminant transport, bioaccumulation and toxicity. Passive sampling devices (PSDs) offer a simplified and more accurate approach for...
Better performance has been one of the main motivations behind the recent resurgence
of interest in asynchronous circuits (no matter whether this is always true or not).
We are particularly interested in the performance of pipelines since they are used extensively
in current digital systems. There exists an algorithm that...
The link between aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and resource gradients generated by complex terrain (solar radiation, nutrients, and moisture) has been established in the literature. Belowground ecosystem stocks and functions, such as soil organic carbon (SOC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and belowground productivity have also been related to the...
Energy consumption is one of the primary bottlenecks to both large and small scale modern compute platforms. Reducing the operating voltage of digital circuits to voltages where the supply voltage is near or below the threshold of the transistors has recently gained attention as a method to reduce the energy...
Construction is a strategically important industry and its productivity has a significant impact on a nation’s economy. However, productivity in the US construction industry has been widely reported to be on the decline. Among several causes identified, the lack of innovation in project management practices has been described as having...
Biodiversity loss is of global concern, and is due in part to deforestation and high consumer demand for wood and wood products. The neotropical tree species Cedrela odorata (“Spanish cedar” or “cedro”) is economically valuable for its wood and faces threats of overexploitation. Due to strong similarities in wood features...
Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the sexually transmitted pathogen responsible for millions of cases of gonorrhea worldwide each year. Rapidly-spreading antibiotic resistance is diminishing the ability to effectively treat a disease with significant consequences to female and male reproductive health, as well as to neonatal well-being. A protective vaccine has the potential...
The research‘s purpose was to examine how exemplary community college study abroad programs assisted student participants in acquiring global competence. Three research questions were explored: 1.What issues need to be anticipated when planning a study abroad program for community college students in order to effectively incorporate opportunities for students to...
This study examined the dynamics of student, teaching assistant (TA), and faculty learning in relationship to implementation of a genetic technologies project in a university introductory biology course. Research focused on the types of learning that occurred and the various factors impacting that learning. Study participants included 25 undergraduate non-science...