Natural selection, in its most basic form, is described as a process in which traitsincrease or decrease in frequency depending on their fitness, and only the trait withthe highest fitness will remain in the population. Yet, populations rarely have asingle `optimal' trait. The way natural selection maintains this observed variationwithin...
Three studies were conducted to characterize and present early-seral
competition between Douglas-fir seedlings and the surrounding vegetation
communities during Pacific Northwest forest establishment. The first experiment
served as the foundation for this dissertation and was designed to quantify tradeoffs
associated with delaying forest establishment activities by introducing a fallow year...
A series of experiments were established to gain a better understanding of the extent to which Douglas-fir seeding root architecture may be manipulated and subsequent influences on seedling morphological and physiological development. The incorporation of amendments into nursery soils changed root architecture to some degree, but did not produce large...
Weed control in Pacific Northwest forests has been criticized for its potential impact on biodiversity. Changes were evaluated in conifer growth, diversity of vegetation in situ and of recruiting plants through different regeneration mechanisms after applying temporally-varied weed control by herbicide treatments based on the critical period concept. Conifer size...
In this thesis we construct compatible discretizations of Maxwell's equations. We use the term compatible to describe numerical methods for Maxwell's equations which obey many properties of vector Calculus in a discrete setting. Compatible discretizations preserve the exterior Calculus ensuring that the divergence of the curl and the curl of...
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,...
The problem of locating a signal source, or an emitter, has many civilian and military applications, such as communication regulations enforcement, military reconnaissance, and search-and-rescue operations. Many of the most widely used emitter location methods rely on the accurate and robust estimation of the differential time delay,
or time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA),...
When the nonconformities are independent, a multivariate control chart for nonconformities called a demerit control chart using a distribution approximation technique called an Edgeworth Expansion, is proposed. For a demerit control chart, an exact control limit can be obtained in special cases, but not in general. A proposed demerit control...
Learning Analytics and other branches of Educational Research such as Computing Education Research (CER) implicitly assume that students, especially college students, have no barriers to access learning platforms or software packages. This assumption may be attributed to such pervasive beliefs such as "everyone has a device", or "everyone can access...
Most reserves fail to capture the habitat heterogeneity necessary to maintain viable populations of wide-ranging species. Methods to determine defensible dimensions of reserves and reserve networks are needed. The primary goal of this study was to develop such methods for lowland tropical forests by examining habitat- and spatial-use patterns of...
The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that influence the ability of teachers and administrators to use data obtained from a data warehouse to inform instruction. The mixed methods study was guided by the following questions: 1) What data warehouse application features affect the ability of an...
It was the intent of this investigation to compare the performance
of community college students to four-year institutional students, both
of whom were enrolled in a college general biology program (GS 101,
102, 103) during the 1967-68 academic year. During the week of
May 27, 1968 measurements were taken of...
In this work, I examine the problem of understanding American football in video. In particular, I present several mid-level computer vision algorithms that each accomplish a different sub-task within a larger system for annotating, interpreting, and analyzing collections of American football video. The analysis of football video is useful in...
Nonlinear optical processes can be described as multiphoton scattering events in terms of high order perturbation theory. The standard procedure for quantitative calculation of high order terms is to impose a steady state condition on the perturbative radiation fields. In the present work, this condition will be lifted, and explicit...
Distractions and interruptions are common occurrences in an operating room (OR), but little is known about their effects on surgical task performance. Based on human factors research, it was hypothesized that realistic distractions and interruptions in an OR would adversely impact surgical task performance. Because of the concern of patient...
In recent years, the research community's interest in fully integrated mm-Wave wireless communication systems has increased significantly. With the standards for 5G NR now in place, the focus has shifted to actual deployment. Mm-Wave systems provide wider bandwidths, higher capacity, and lower latency than existing systems such as 4G. Higher...
Agricultural revenues, the product of stochastic prices and yields, lead to markets which are
incomplete, thereby entreating and complicating economic inquiry. The following three essays
explore the incomplete nature of agricultural markets and consider the implications of
incompleteness for a range of policy questions and economic tools.
The first essay,...
Spreadsheets are among the most widely used end-user programming systems. Unfortunately, there is a high incidence of errors in end-user spreadsheets, and some of these errors have high impact. In this dissertation, we describe techniques we have developed to help end users develop safer spreadsheets. As part of our research,...
The rate and manner of bioniass loss from decomposing Douglas-fir and western hemlock boles in mid-elevation forests of the central Cascade Range were measured. Bole bark and wood were considered separately. Loss of bole wood due to respiration was measured by change in bole wood density. Loss of bole wood...
The purpose of this research was to investigate the
effectiveness of using an early childhood language intervention
program with children who had been determined to be
language delayed at the ages of 3, 4 and 5 and to determine
how the early childhood langauge intervention program was
associated with changes...
The critically endangered Maui's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori maui) and the endangered Hector's dolphin (C. h. hectori) are endemic to the coastal waters of New Zealand, where their primary threat is fisheries-related mortality. The Maui's dolphin is among the most critically endangered cetaceans in the world, with its remnant population primarily...
This thesis presents the results of an investigation into the interactions between the present-day South Cascade Glacier and the former Mauna Kea ice cap at short (annual to centennial) and long (millennial and multimillennial) time scales. To quantify the response of South Cascade Glacier to atmospheric conditions, a surface energy...
The economic analysis of land use decisions provides insight into incentive structures faced by landowners and the impacts of landowner decisions on others. Qualifying and quantifying these incentives and impacts offers insight into the relevant characteristics of decision-making. In turn, this allows the researcher to model and predict land use...
For the past half century, CMOS process scaling has followed Moore's law, approximately doubling transistor density every 18 months. While locally routed wires have generally scaled with transistor size, longer wires have scaled at a slower rate and in some cases have grown larger as chip size and complexity have...
Oregon's nursery and greenhouse industry has ranked the first in the State's agricultural for 18 years. The majority of nursery sales from the Pacific Northwest come from Oregon. Due to data limitations, empirical study of the Oregon nursery industry is rare. The present dissertation consists of three essays that analyze...
Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) technology promises high speed, high system capacity and low latency interconnects with reduced cost. Applications like high data-rate wireless links, next generation automotive sensors and security body scanners highly depend on mm-wave technology innovations. As operating frequency moves to higher mm-wave bands, shrinking antenna dimensions enable co-integration of...
A novel high temperature thermal instrument is proposed, which utilizes a dual-sensing platinum resistor encased in a mono-crystalline alpha-alumina (sapphire) substrate. The instrument is comprised of four platinum trace elements, oriented with 90° rotational symmetry atop a 1120 oriented crystal lattice substrate. All four of these sensors measure temperature directly...
Oxide materials exhibit a wide variety of structures and properties. In particular, transition metal oxides tend to be highly stable while exhibiting a wide range of properties that can be used for numerous applications. This work focuses on investigating how the structures’ of 4d and 5d transition metal oxides influences...
Oxides of post-transition metals often show unique structures and properties due to the presence of lone pair electrons and the diffused s orbitals. The present work focuses on synthesis and characterizations of oxides containing Te, a heavy post transition metal.
New series of pyrochlore oxides of the formula Cs(M,Te)₂O₆ (M...
Within this dissertation, we develop tools and techniques to demonstrate the feasibility of real-time optimization of a magnetohydrodynamics generator. To ease computational complexity, we work on the kinematic magnetohydrodynamic system, prescribing the fluid-flow and model the material response of the system through an updated Generalized Ohm’s law. We focus on...
The need for sustainably powering unobtrusive internet-of-things applications has led to an interest in energy harvesting. Particularly, the proliferation of wireless communication and devices in the 2.4 GHz Industrial Scientificc Medical (ISM) band creates an opportunity to leverage commonly used devices for RF powering. This dissertation presents a low-quiescent-power...
We spatially discretize the Sn transport equation using the high-order (HO) discontinuous finite element method (DFEM) on HO meshes. Previous work provided a proof-of-concept for this spatial discretization method in X-Y geometry. Included in the present work, we derive a spatial discretization for the Sn transport equation in both X-Y...
Ocean wave energy converter technology continues to advance and new developers continue to emerge, leading to the need for a general design, modeling, and testing methodology. This work presents a development of the process of taking a wave energy converter from a concept to the prototype stage. A two body...
Hop (Humulus lupulus L. var. lupulus) is a diploid, dioecious plant with an extensive history of cultivation and use in brewing, as a textile, and for its therapeutic properties. Hop is prized for its ability to produce a variety of aromatic and flavor compounds, as well as compounds with anti-microbial...
Ocean wave energy shows great potential as a developing form of renewable energy. However, challenges arise in maturing this technology to achieve cost-effective energy conversion. Development and testing of wave energy converters can be problematic due to the harsh environment in which they are operated. To promote development of this...
Vertical Axis Pendulum Wave Energy Converters (VAPWECs) are thought to be both effective and robust at converting ocean wave energy into usable electricity. Seeking to build upon and investigate such potential, this work examines the merits of actively controlling a generic VAPWEC's pendulum for the purpose of increasing the converter's...
The avifaunal composition of ten western Oregon forest stands located at the eastern base of the Coast Range was examined on a seasonal basis. The stands were dominated by Oregon white oak, Douglas fir or western hemlock, Avian populations were sampled monthly from January 1968 to January 1970, using permanent...
The objective of this dissertation was to understand the physical mechanisms affecting inversion events in a complex forested mountain landscape. This work was motivated by the long-term studies of climate at the Andrews Forest, short-term studies of vertical temperature, light, wind, and moisture gradient in old-growth trees, and interest in...
Several types of solid-state inorganic materials are prepared and characterized. By using the SILAR (Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction) deposition method in conjunction with hydrothermal dehydration both low-temperature deposition and crystallization of oxide thin films are achieved. Various aspects of new transparent p-type materials are studied by examining both...
The threespot damselfish, Stegastes planifrons,
maintains individual territories that are clustered on
coral patch reefs. My objective was to understand the
effects of territory clustering on behavior and fitness.
Fish with territories in the center of a cluster had
(relative to edge fish): higher mating success (number of
eggs), higher...
Coal continues to be burned by direct combustion in packed or moving bed in
small size domestic furnaces, medium size industrial furnaces, as well as small power
stations. Recent stringent restrictions on exhaust emissions call for a better
understanding of the process of combustion of coal in beds.
The present...
The effect of ultra-high pressure on the thermal emf of a
chromelialumel thermocouple is investigated using an indirect
method which does not require a direct knowledge of the temperature
of the pressurized junction. The unknown temperature is written
parametrically as a function of a directly measured quantity, the
electrical power...
Citizen science is a term broadly used to describe activities that typically involve the public in the process, methods, and standards of scientific research with the aim of advancing scientific knowledge or application. Engagement in citizen science for project and program volunteers is influenced by much more than an individual’s...