The reliability and sensitivity of enzyme-linked immunosorbent
assay (ELISA) in the detection of ilarvirus (isometric labile ringspot
virus) subgroup B and prune dwarf virus (PDV) isolates in Prunus and
Malus species has been well established. To use this technique in
large scale virus indexing programs more information was required on...
Domestic violence (DV) is a major social and public health issue in countries such as India and Pakistan where patriarchy is the way of life and cultural norms, and beliefs hold a greater say in community decision-making. Women in these countries are discriminated against from birth and face hurdles in...
Pseudomonas syringae is a Gram-negative bacterium that can infect a variety of important crops. Infection by P. syringae is dependent on a type III secretion system (T3SS) that delivers effector proteins to plant cells to suppress host defenses. Previous work has shown that, in the presence of simple sugars, specific...
Hypersensitive response-like (HR-like) needle reactions to infection by the white pine blister rust pathogen, Cronartium ribicola, have been reported for several species of five needle pines native to western North America. The best-studied examples are in Pinus monticola and P. lambertiana. In these species a "needle spot" phenotype has been...
Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Rhodococcus fascians are plant pathogenic bacteria that can induce crown and leafy galls on plants, respectively. Infection by these bacteria results in disfigured, unsellable plants, leading to significant economic losses to the nursery industry. A. tumefaciens and R. fascians are capable of infecting a broad range of...
The fate and transport of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) such as titanium dioxide (TiO₂) are of concern due to their increasing use in consumer products. Although analytical methods for detection and quantification of ENPs in environmental matrices are being developed, these methods are difficult, time consuming, and not easily validated for...
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States. Patients with cirrhosis are more likely to develop HCC. More than 80% of HCC patients are found have preexisting cirrhosis. The prevalence of cirrhosis increased from 0.26% to 0.3.% between 1999 to 2010 and...
Modern technology has enabled the advancement of biological research through the use of powerful machines and computers as well as innovative computer programs. Advances in sequencing technology and software enable us to make de novo assemblies of organism genomes, and the development of specialized computer programs can automate routine but...
Unmet healthcare needs and/or delays in needed care are widespread among patients with serious mental illness (SMI). Mental healthcare delivery has changed dramatically over the last two decades. Although access to mental health specialists remains challenging, mental healthcare is now increasingly provided in primary care settings. However, it is unclear...
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...
In ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests of the western United States, prescribed fires are used to reduce fuel loads and restore historical fire regimes. The season in which prescribed burns are performed and the interval between burns can have complex consequences for the ecosystem, including soil carbon cycling through 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...
Calcium activated proteases, or calpains, are activated in cardiac muscles under conditions of ischemia/reperfusion and hypoxia. Their activity in skeletal muscle under similar conditions is poorly understood. We tested the hypothesis that hypoxia elevates calpain-mediated proteolysis in isolated glycolytic (extensor digitorum longus, EDL) and oxidative (soleus, SOL) mouse muscles studied...
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Hui Hu, Author
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I greatly appreciate my major professor, Dr. Jeff
The United States is a global leader in agricultural productivity. Much of its productivity growth can be attributed to public investments in agricultural research and development, starting in the 19th century and continuing until today. Past studies have shown high returns to agricultural research investments, but publicly funded agricultural research...
In intensively managed forest plantations in the northern Oregon Coast Range, herbicides are often applied during site preparation and early stand regeneration to reduce competition for resources for planted conifer seedlings. In addition to reducing competition for crop trees, herbicide applications may affect soil processes including decomposition and nutrient cycling,...
Low concentrations of dissolved copper have been shown to adversely
affect the olfactory system of endangered salmonids, impairing their ability to avoid predators and likely increasing predation. It is believed that only the free ionic (Cu2+ free) and weakly complexed forms are bioavailable to organisms; these forms typically account for...
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 purpose of this study was twofold. First, to determine if planned
interventions could increase untrained undergraduate students' use of positive and
specific skill feedback while a teaching fundamental motor skill to children who are
disabled. Second, to qualitatively assess the effect of specific verbal feedback on
student motor performance....
Forest soils contain a substantial portion of global terrestrial carbon stores. Forest management can influence the soil carbon pool and how soil organic matter functions. The long-term productivity of forests is an ongoing goal where land managers utilize biomass and timber. A site-specific understanding of intensively managed forests can ensure...
Many important policy problems entail linkages among multiple economic sectors, and require the use of a general equilibrium economic modeling framework. This economic approach is appropriate when the market for any one good or service is linked to numerous other goods and services, and back to fundamental inputs such as...
Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) located in Eugene, Lane County, Oregon, is developing a voluntary landowner incentive program that will provide monetary incentives to non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners in the McKenzie River Watershed, EWEB’s drinking water source for the metropolitan area of Eugene, to promote good stewardship of...
The discovery of novel compounds with antibacterial properties continues to be critically important.3 One potential source of such compounds is the cryptic genome of fungi known to produce biologically active molecules. A kmt6 mutant of the cereal pathogen Fusarium graminearum was previously developed through a histone H3 lysine 27 methyltransferase...
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...
Forest soils of the Pacific Northwest contain immense amounts of carbon (C). Increasing acreage burned by severe wildfire in the western Oregon Cascades threatens belowground carbon stocks and future site viability. This study investigates forest soil carbon changes after the 2020 Holiday Farm wildfire in a young, intensively managed Douglas-fir...
Plant pathogenic Rhodococcus species are persistent pathogens able to cause severe growth deformities on a large range of hosts. The most well studied species, R. fascians is predicted by current models to synthesize a mixture of cytokinins that act to directly perturb the hosts' hormone balances, which results in abnormal...
Health disparity scholars and researchers call to expand the conceptualization of health disparities research beyond the predominant and long-standing race-based analyses. The call requests the inclusion of frameworks and theories that reflect the complex, multi-level and multifactorial social processes that yield health disparities. Intersectionality is a theoretical framework that is...
Bacteria are critical to the health of eukaryotes and the ecosystems in which they persist. Some symbiotic interactions are mutualistic in which both microbe and host benefit from the partnership. Other interactions are parasitic, and the microbe typically benefits at a cost to the host. Rhodococcus is a genus of...
Research Objective: Nearly 60 million people in the United States reside in a rural area. Residents in rural areas have higher rates of chronic disease, risky health behaviors, disability, infant mortality, and age-adjusted mortality than their urban counterparts. Health insurance and access to care mitigate those risks, in part because...
Symbioses are a spectrum of interactions between organisms living in closeassociation. These intimate interactions range from mutualism, in which bothorganisms benefit, to parasitism, where one organism benefits at the expense ofthe other. Horizontal gene transfer is the acquisition of genes independent ofvertical transmission and demonstrably promotes the transition of bacteria...
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Jeff H. Chang
Symbioses are a spectrum of interactions between organisms living in close
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...
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Jeff H. Chang
Symbioses between microbes and multicellular eukaryotes are found in all
Gall-associated phytopathogens have unique evolutionary histories that haveshaped both their modes of infection and genomic structures. Pathogenicity of the gall-associated plant pathogens of the Rhodococcus, Agrobacterium, and Rathayibactergenera is mediated by horizontally acquired virulence loci. The relative ease of gainand loss of the virulence loci has confounded accurate characterization of...
Small mountainous watersheds are disproportionate sources of land-derived particulate organic matter (POM) to long-term sinks like lake bottoms and the ocean. As such, these ecosystems are an essential component of the global carbon cycle. The burial of POM in lacustrine and marine sediments contributes to the drawdown of atmospheric CO2...
In the realms of psychology and sociology two new theoretical models have arisen to describe the forces influencing altruistic human behavior. The first Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis (EAH), by C.D. Batson. The second is the Conceptual Continuum of Altruism (CCA), by K.R. Monroe. Both models have proven to be highly useful in...
The focus of this research concentrates on enhancement
of the LOGSIM mechanized log harvesting system
simulator. Enhancement of software focuses on overall
improvement of the user environment as well as improvement
of the performance and capabilities of the simulation
package.
An enhanced version of the front-end interface
program is developed...
I conducted a multi-scale evaluation of aspen – bird relationships in the northern ungulate winter range of the northern Yellowstone ecosystem during June 2001-03. Questions addressed were: (1) Does bird diversity increase with conifer presence in aspen stands? (2) Given known habitat selection cues, are migrating birds passively intercepted by...
Background. Total knee arthroplasty, or replacement, is a common, generally successful, and expensive procedure. Tools to predict outcomes following orthopedic procedures are abundant, yet no commonly used assessment accounts for an individual’s propensity to engage in adaptive health behavior. The 13-item Patient Activation Measure (PAM) questionnaire is a tool that...
Quantifying labile phosphorus (P) pools in biosolids is needed to manage biosolids for both agronomic and environmental purposes. Phosphorus indices originated in an effort to protect surface water quality from-non-point-agricultural P inputs. The objectives of this research were to: (1) evaluate soil test components of the western Oregon P index...
PURPOSE: To compare glenohumeral joint position sense (JPS), concentric internal (IR) and external rotation (ER) strength, functional ability, and level of satisfaction in patients who underwent three types of glenohumeral capsulorrhaphy with age-matched controls. RESEARCH DESIGN: Four 4x2 and two 4x3 ANOVAs were used to identify differences in JPS and...
The Willamette Valley of Oregon has high rates of winter precipitation that cause
leaching losses of residual fertilizer nitrogen (N) as nitrate (NO₃). Cover crops may have
potential to mitigate N loss. Shallow groundwater was sampled for 11 years from plots
planted in summer vegetables with and without winter cover...
Full Text:
AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF
Jeff Feaga for the degree of