The Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) is in decline in the Columbia River Basin, and translocating adult lamprey to bypass difficult migration corridors has been implemented since 2000. We describe and report results from two current translocation programs, provide context for use of translocation, and discuss potential benefits, risks, and uncertainties....
All mammals host communities of commensal microbes in and on their bodies. Recent technological advances, combined with experimental studies in laboratory animals, are beginning to reveal the ubiquitous links between the gut microbiome and host disease, metabolism, immunity, and numerous other host functions. A new challenge of microbiome research is...
Dearomatization reactions exist broadly in biosynthesis and chemical synthesis. The highly functionalized atoms of arenes can be masked by it aromaticity, and upon dearomatization, those reactive atoms can be readily applied to bond formation and further manipulation. The total synthesis of (–)-cephalotaxine and (–)- homoharringtonine is described via an oxidative...
Our quest for pharmaceutically important marine natural products led to re-isolation of known mandelalides A-D and identification of new congeners E-L from re-collected South African Lissoclinum tunicate specimens. Mandelalides A, B, and L were characterized as selective cancer cell toxins, with an unusual activity profile influenced by their glycosylation /...
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...
Martin Buber was an internationally known scholar,
teacher, and author whose works covered education, communication,
politics, theology, philosophy, counseling,
and related fields. The purpose of this study was to
discover the implications of Buber's philosophy of education
for the student services profession. Previous
attempts to relate Martin Buber's philosophy to...
Exploring bioactive natural products has contributed largely to clinically approved drugs we have been using over the last 100 years. Especially among the anti-infective drugs, around 70% of currently used antibiotics were discovered or derived from microbial secondary metabolites, among them compounds like vancomycin, chloramphenicol, and erythromycin. Facing the unavoidable...
Globally, the number of threatened species is increasing and conserving them is a high priority to the scientific community. Assessing the status of these protected species is challenging due to missing, contested, and or contradictory data streams. Integrated models (IMs) provide a statistical framework for combining disparate data sources to...
Despite the advance of biomedical science, infectious diseases remain one of the number one killers in the world. They claim the lives of millions of people annually, particularly in underdeveloped and developing countries. In fact, more than 32% of the health burden in Africa is caused by infectious diseases, e.g.,...
In the western United States, bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) have suffered major die-offs in every state since the mid-1800s, and disease from domestic sheep (Ovis aries) has been a primary factor in these events. Beginning in the early 1900s, poly-factorial, poly-microbial pneumonia was identified as a major disease affecting bighorn...
Tides in the Delaware Bay (USA) have been modeled from 7000 years before present (7 ka) to the present day and for selected future sea-level rise scenarios (100 years, 300 years). Historic bathymetries were constructed through use of glacial isostatic adjustment models and a very high spatial resolution (< 100...
Smoldering combustion in wildland fires poses hazards for both ecosystems and humans by destroying biomass, transitioning to flaming combustion, and releasing significant quantities of pollution. Understanding the parameters that control smoldering is necessary to help predict and potentially mitigate these hazards. A challenge in identifying these parameters is the wide...
In many undergraduate engineering programs, students do not synthesize content learned from multiple courses until a capstone senior design course. As an example, in undergraduate civil engineering programs, transportation engineering concepts (e.g., geometric alignment, asphalt design procedures) and geotechnical engineering concepts (e.g., shear strength of soils, soil compaction) are not...
The settlement history of a remote area in the Coast Range of Oregon, from the 1870s to the 1930s, is examined through factors that may have influenced the success or failure, and length of residence of the homesteaders and later residents. Despite the rugged and isolated location, a small community...
The settlement history of a remote area in the Coast Range of Oregon, from the 1870s to the 1930s, is examined through factors that may have influenced the success or failure, and length of residence of the homesteaders and later residents. Despite the rugged and isolated location, a small community...
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...
All life depends on the reliable translation of RNA to protein according to complex interactions between translation machinery and RNA sequence features. While ribosomal occupancy and codon frequencies vary across coding regions, well-established metrics for computing coding potential of RNA do not capture such positional dependence. Here, we investigate position-dependent...
The existence of a “digital divide,” or inequalities of access to digital technologies among different American subpopulations, has been hotly debated and contested since the National Telecommunications and Information Administration first popularized the phrase in 1995. The purpose of this thesis is to critically examine the dominant discourses around the...
Humboldt Redwoods State Park in southern Humboldt County, California is a coastal redwood forest, a highly unique and valued ecosystem. It has many social, cultural, ecological, and economic values, including recreational benefits, heritage and aesthetic values, high biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and climate regulation. However, Humboldt County is at risk of...
The use of Ionization Chambers and Thermo-luminescent dosimeters (TLD's) in the medical field has established a need to determine if the skin depth dose response is comparable between the two detectors. This research will determine if the dose response from an Ionization chamber is comparable to a Thermo-luminescent dosimeter system...
Site ORYA3, the Smith House, is located in Dayton, Oregon. The archaeological project originated because owners of this structure, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, applied for a demolition permit. The 1859 home, first occupied by two early Oregon pioneers, Andrew and Sarah Smith, was considered architecturally significant,...
We present a classical density functional to model the soft, repulsive potential of a Weeks-Chandler-Andersen (WCA) fluid using Soft Fundamental Measure Theory (SFMT) with temperature-dependent parameters inspired by the Barker-Henderson method. Our functional uses soft spheres to model the soft-sphere WCA potential, and gives results that are in good agreement...
The archaeological resources contained in Corvallis Riverfront
Commemorative Park (RCP) have a great potential to add to the historical
record of the warehouse district of the original town of Marysville (Corvallis).
The City of Corvallis' proposed Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project and
proposed changes to Riverfront Commemorative Park threaten to...
Solutions to Einstein's equations are usually found by considering ideal, simplified models. However, if the real world always matched ideal physics models, then farmers would milk black and white spheres. To combat this, Regge calculus was developed as a numerical approximation scheme for general relativity. In Regge calculus curved manifolds...
Our goal is to build a system to model the RNA sequences that reveals their structural information by using efficient dynamic programming algorithms and deep learning approaches. We aim to 1) achieve linear-time for RNA secondary structure prediction based on existing minimum free energy models; 2) utilize deep neural networks...
Environmental crime around the world, such as trafficking in illegal timber, is directly related to political instability. Traffickers exploit weak, fragile, and chaotic political circumstances to illegally extract high-value commodities, challenging the extent to which conservation goals are achievable in resource rich developing countries. Rosewood is the largest traded endangered...
Signalized intersections often provide pushbuttons to call for pedestrian service to minimize conflicting movements between road users. Signalized midblock crossings typically increase safety for pedestrians in locations with high traffic volumes and multiple lanes in each direction. However, unnecessary vehicular delay occurs from “ghost” pedestrian intervals when someone activates the...
Solvent free microwave extraction (SFME) has been demonstrated to be feasible in extraction of essential oils from botanical materials. The benefits are no need for any solvent aside from the water naturally in the botanical material and a significant reduction in environmental impact for large scale production processes. However, the...
210 East First Street (site 35WS453) contains the only extant remains of a once thriving Overseas Chinese settlement, in the city of The Dalles, Oregon. Very little is known about the everyday lives of these early settlers, or the pressures that they faced. This thesis will help to enrich the...
During the early 19th Century, the fur trade brought many Iroquois to the Pacific Northwest as working primarily as voyageurs for the North West Company. When the North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay Company, the Iroquois employees merged as well. After retirement, some settled in the Willamette Valley...
This archaeological based research uses ceramics in the study of acculturation from a site excavated by an urban archaeology contract firm, and utilizes the theories of consumer choice, ethnicity and acculturation. Artifact analysis took place in the form of minimum vessel counts, artifact relative frequencies, and Chinese artifact values, as...
This thesis describes investigations of archaeological materials recovered from Site ORBE2, an early-twentieth century historic site in Corvallis, OR. The archaeological materials were found only after construction workers had excavated trenches underneath the still-standing structure on the site in order to install a new foundation. Over 1500 artifacts were recovered...
Nuclear energy enjoyed widespread support in the United States during its initial decades and has seen extensive study as a potential means of combating contemporary energy issues such as climate change and alternative transportation fuels. Despite the potential contribution to solving these challenges, the industry has been largely stagnant since...
This dissertation explores the structural dynamics of human understanding and particularly the concept of meaning and its connections to concepts of ultimate ground, necessity and contingency, language, and perception. It focuses on the history of the concept of meaning in early twentieth-century European physics and philosophy, through an analysis of...
Current paradigm suggests that spatial and temporal competition for resources limit an exotic invader, cheatgrass (Bromus
tectorum L.), which once established, alters fire regimes and can result in annual grass dominance in sagebrush steppe.
Prescribed fire and fire surrogate treatments (mowing, tebuthiuron, and imazapic) are used to reduce woody fuels...
The rates of biological introductions and invasions are increasing, driving up the associated harms to ecosystems and economies. The spread and effects of invasive organisms depend on the specifics of the introduction, the character of the invaded ecosystem, and multiple traits of the invasive organism itself. One mechanism by which...
Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, the fungal kingdom has remained a fertile source for the discovery of new, biologically active, natural products. Further, as natural products continue to be discovered from fungi, a deeper understanding of the critical role of specialized metabolism in fungal ecology is afforded. The...
Species declines and extinctions have been recorded across taxa as evidence of an ongoing global biodiversity crisis. Amphibians are at the forefront of these declines with nearly one third of amphibian species estimated to be at risk of extinction. While many factors contribute to population declines and extinctions, the role...
Renewable energy policy serves as a tool to combat the hazards that fossil energy sources pose to human health and the global environment. It is also being used to achieve additional social and economic goals alongside environmental policy, namely, bringing equitable liberation to populations disproportionately affected by increasing global temperatures....
The Coast Reservation of Oregon was established under Executive Order of President Franklin Pierce in November, 1855, as a homeland for the southern Oregon tribes. It was an immense, isolated wilderness, parts of which had burned earlier in the century. There were some prairies where farming was possible, but because...
Over the last ten years, clinical, pre-clinical and animal studies have shown associations between the microbiota and neurological functions. Recent work by the scientific community on the gut-microbiome-brain axis have revealed that gut dysbiosis and specific microbial taxa are associated with a myriad of neurological conditions, such as autism spectrum...
Flow homogenization, the removal of natural flow events such as floods and droughts, can be detrimental to the functioning of riverine habitats. In rivers with beaver (Castor canadensis), flow homogenization can facilitate unchecked beaver dam construction due to lack of dam removal from floods, leading to physical effects such as...
In 1976-77 and 2010, Oregon State University (OSU) excavated portions of the enlisted men’s barracks and privy at Fort Hoskins, a Civil War-era fort. In operation from 1856 to 1865, this fort served as part of a security network to protect and monitor the recently created Coast Indian Reservation. The...
The recent reductions to the international dose limit recommendations for the lens
of the eye have renewed interest in radiation protection strategies in interventional
fluoroscopy, where eye-lens radiation exposure occurs frequently. Radiationshielding
eyewear can significantly reduce lens dose in these scenarios, but accurate
protection factors are elusive because they depend...
The National Council of Radiation Protection and Measurements
Report No. 49, originally issued on September 15, 1976, has been the
primary design guide for diagnostic x-ray structural shielding in the
United States. To further protect the public from various areas of
medical radiation exposure, NCRP issued Report 116 in 1987...
Stability, substrate and inhibitor specificity and electrophoretic
properties of a crude polyphenol oxidase (PPO) preparation extracted
from d'Anjou pears (Pyrus communis L.) were investigated. Levels
of polyvinylpyrrolidone and pH of buffer for extraction were found
to affect the specific activity of the extracted enzyme. An extract
prepared with 1.5 g...
The uptake, tissue distribution and retention patterns of
cadmium, mercury and zinc were examined in the freshwater mussel,
Margaritifera margaritifera. All three of these heavy metals are
found in the environment. Both cadmium and mercury are toxic at
low environmental concentrations. Zinc may also be toxic at low concentrations
but...
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...