Global environmental change is causing local extinctions of species. When species depend on one another, as in the mutualistic relationship between plants and pollinators, loss of one interaction partner may cause cascading effects within the community – such as additional extinctions and reduced pollination services. Network theory provides a way...
This thesis research is a series of five studies dealing
with various aspects of hazelnut quality:
1. Identification of kernel mold and its incidence among
hazelnut varieties.
2. Seasonal development and composition of kernels.
3. Hazelnut oil composition (fatty acids and
tocopherols) of seventeen varieties.
4. Hazelnut oil composition compared...
Ribomimetic natural products have long been known for their important biological activities. Structurally, they contain a densely functionalized cyclopentane unit that resembles ribose. Pactamycin, the prominent member of this class of natural products, is a potent protein synthesis inhibitor produced by the soil bacterium Streptomyces pactum. In pactamycin, the aminocyclopentitol...
Mycobacterium avium subsp. hominissuis (MAH) belongs to the most-clinically significant non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) pathogens with constant increase in disease prevalence, mainly in several industrialized western countries where tuberculosis is less prevalent. Upon entry into the alveolar space, MAH is engulfed by resident-macrophages, where the pathogen adapts to the hostile phagosomal...
Although a significant amount of research has investigated the effect of sexualization on women's body esteem and cognitive performance, few researchers have examined the effect of sexualization on girls. Additionally, research that has been conducted regarding girls' experiences of sexualization has primarily focused on media influences. The effect of dolls...
Euphausia pacifica, the North Pacific krill, is a key grazer in the California Current System and an important prey item for consumers such as salmon, seabirds, and whales. As a crucial link between phytoplankton and higher trophic levels, it is essential to understand both the behavior and bioenergetics of this...
In recent years, the role of the City Manager in municipal
policy making has been the focus of considerable attention and debate in
both the academic and local government arenas. The purpose of this
study was to determine the differences in views of elected mayors and
appointed managers with regard...
The distribution of anthocyanin pigments and polyphenolics of sweet (Prunus avium) and sour cherries (Prunus cerasus) were determined by Ultraviolet- Visible (UV-Visible) spectrophotometry and High Performance Liquid Chromatography with photodiode array detector (HPLC-DAD). Their antioxidant properties were determined by Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) and Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP)....
Small pelagic fish represent a critical trophic link between plankton and large predators in marine upwelling ecosystems such as the California Current System. Populations of these fish are highly variable over time and are characterized by extreme fluctuations in abundance, which have significant ecosystem impacts. The causes driving
this instability...
The number of women diagnosed with diabetes, including gestational diabetes, will continue to increase in the face of epidemic rates of obesity. The concurrent rise in obesity and diabetes makes it important to determine the risk factors for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and the nature and extent of care offered...
This work investigates the in-tube condensation of low global warming potential (GWP) zeotropic refrigerant mixtures R448A, R450A, R452A, R454B and R454C. These refrigerants have been proposed for a wide range of commercial heating, ventilation, air-conditioning applications, but their heat and momentum transport phenomenon were not well understood. Thus, in this...
Relay strip-cropping combines two vegetation management tactics, under-sowing
and strip-management. In this study conducted from 1994 though 1997, a
cover crop seed-mixture containing oats (Avena sativa L. var. "Monida"), common
vetch (Vicia sativa L.), red clover (Trifolium pratense L.), annual ryegrass (Lolium
multflorum Lam.), and buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) was...
Curcumin is a yellow colored bioactive pigment present in the spice turmeric (Curcuma longa). It has been identified with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antibacterial, antirheumatic, antidiabetic and antiviral properties. It is extensively used in nutraceutical, food and cosmetics industry. Fueled by its potential uses in research community and rise in awareness...
The interactions of chemical species with a solid surface play a role in many everyday applications such as heterogeneous catalysis, corrosion, and degradation reactions. Understanding the reaction kinetics and thermodynamics via rate constants and equilibrium constants, which require knowledge of the adsorbed species’ entropy, is essential for tuning these surface...
The objective of this research was to improve our understanding of how
changes in the environment affect ecological processes. Change detection is often
confounded by the large variation found in ecological data due to the difficulty of
finding replicates in nature. Intertidal communities were chosen for studies of biophysical
interactions...
Ph.D. candidate Qi Wei's thesis consists of two projects: Chemotherapy Project: a study based on the research paper "Predicting chemotherapy response of various cancer types using a variational auto-encoder approach" submitted to the bioRxiv preprint archive and accepted by the BMC bioinformatics; and Wound Monitor Project: implementing and assessing analytics...
Algae can be used in a variety of wastewater systems to capture nutrients while fixing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. I conducted field trials at three locations in Oregon with both corn and potato crops to assess the agronomic value and environmental impact of using the resulting algal biomass as...
Although dam construction has been an integral tool in development initiatives for nearly a century, dams can have significant negative impacts on local residents, particularly those who are permanently displaced from their homes and must be resettled elsewhere. Dams have unique impacts on indigenous peoples. As a result, many dam...
This study focuses in providing the knowledge on carbon (C) stocks, emission and ecosystem productivity related to land use/land cover change in tropical peatlands. The field research activities were conducted for about 17 months between August 2013 to December 2015, at Pematang Gadung peat dome (peat depth up to 10.5...
This dissertation addresses gaps of knowledge associated with how ecosystem carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions are affected by land use land cover change in tropical peatlands. This was the first study that paired peat swamp forests with oil palm plantations and analyzed site scale variation on greenhouse gas emissions....
This is a case study of the cooperative development of an ocean condition forecasting tool by Oregon commercial fishermen, Oregon State University (OSU) scientists, and OSU student software engineers. Ocean condition forecasting models developed by OSU scientists were used to create an online tool to assist decision-making for fishermen. This...
The search for the stand density that optimizes growth and hence generates the maximum amount of wood is one of the philosopher’s stone in modern forestry. Since scientific methods were applied to forestry, numerous generations of foresters have studied the relations between stocking density and growth, obtaining diverse results and...
Plants develop a vast array of cell shapes and sizes by selectively modifying their surrounding cell walls to expand in some regions and not in others. This process of morphogenesis requires the delivery of secretory vesicles to specific locations at the cell periphery, where exocytosis adds new membrane and proteins...
The pozzolanic reactivity test (PRT) is used to quantify the pozzolanic reactivity of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). The PRT computes reactivity by measuring heat release (Q) and calcium hydroxide (CH) consumption, as interpreted using thermodynamic modeling. The robustness of PRT is examined by experimentally varying CH-to-SCM ratio, solution-to-solid ratio, sulfate...
During the U.S. military interventions in Nicaragua, the Dominican
Republic, and Haiti between 1915 and 1934, Washington equipped
members of the its armed forces with civil and political powers that
represented a radical departure from the North American military tradition.
This abandonment of tradition decisively contributed to both the
disappointments...
The purpose of this research was to determine whether hybridization between Amelanchier denticulata. (H.B.K.) Koch and Amelanchier nervosa (Decaisne) StandL occurs in Oaxaca, Mexico, and to evaluate components of yield and germination characteristics and seed dormancy of Amelanchier denticulata. Amelanchier nervosa and Amelanchier denticulata samples and morphological characters were used...
Pseudomonas is a diverse genus of Gram-negative bacteria that includes pathogens of plants, insects, and humans as well as environmental strains with no known pathogenicity. Pseudomonas fluorescens itself encompasses a heterologous group of bacteria that are prevalent in soil and on foliar and root surfaces of plants. Some strains of...
The development of a transient electric birefringence (TEB) apparatus for macroparticle characterization is herein discussed. The experimental difficulties encountered were related largely to poor data resolution. Misalignment and strain birefringence in optical components further complicated results. Improved data digitization methods were developed, and precise mathematical models were derived in order...
It is desirable for complex engineered systems to perform missions efficiently and economically, even when these missions' complex, variable, long-term operational profiles make it likely for hazards to arise. It is thus important to design these systems to be resilient so that they will actively prevent and recover from hazards...
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...
Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.
Coastal landslides and erosion are major natural hazards resulting in unstable slopes, constituting immense challenges to modern infrastructure. Developing, maintaining, and performing risk assessments of infrastructure on, or close to, these hazards require a detailed understanding of the geophysical processes destabilizing the slope. These efforts start with the collection of...
As obligate intracellular parasites, viruses rely on host machinery for their own reproduction. Viruses are therefore required to interact with a wide variety of host proteins, despite limitations in viral genome size. The most parsimonious method of success is to hijack central and essential proteins, known as hub proteins. LC8...
Environmental toxicologists and public health officials are responsible for assisting in the identification, management, and mitigation of public health hazards. As a result, there is a continued need for robust analytical tools that can aid in the rapid quantification and characterization of chemical exposure. In the first research phase, we...
The deglacial behavior of the sub-Arctic North Pacific is poorly constrained, with many published records suffering from limited age control due to extensive post- depositional biogenic carbonate dissolution. Potential alternative dating methods could include the correlation of stable-isotopic and/or paleomagnetic secular variation records to an independently-dated regional template, however no...
This is a qualitative research project that seeks to understand the meanings that Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors (CADC's) have ascribed to their life experiences in relation to their choices about higher education. The participants are four Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors in Oregon who have less than bachelor degrees....
Fifty-seven species of wildlife rely on or frequently use snags for breeding, roosting, or denning in Oregon and Washington. Several publications offer information on use of snags by wildlife, influence of management activities on snags and snag users, and approaches to managing snags to benefit wildlife. Because of the diverse...
Food waste (FW), brewery waste (BW), and fats, oils, and greases (FOG), are prevalent waste streams in municipalities across the country, particularly in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Anaerobic digestion (AD), the microbial-mediated transformation of organic waste into methane-rich biogas, offers a sustainable, energy-generating, waste management solution for these wastes. Anaerobic...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Multi-robot teams offer promising solutions for many long term deployments in remote and dangerous domains, such as extraterrestrial or underseas exploration. However, long term deployments present many problems preventing robot teams from operating effectively. Learning over long time scales is makes it difficult to assign credit to robots' actions, as...
Local adaptation in plants may hold the key to understanding the level of resilience of an ecosystem and probability of persistence of a species in the face of rapid anthropogenic changes in climate and disturbance regime. Clonal species are especially important in wetlands, one of our most productive and vulnerable...
Coastal dunes provide a diverse set of ecosystem services including coastal protection against destructive surge and waves during storm events. Dunes are constantly evolving through various stages of response to storm events and post-storm recovery at rates that vary due to a range of drivers including pre-existing morphology, environmental forcing...
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...
In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, understanding wildlife disease spillover is critical to maintaining protected wildlife areas. Studying ecoimmunology and wildlife disease ecology helps to understand immune and disease traits in an ecological context, which is invaluable in preventing pathogen spillover between livestock and wildlife. To investigate this...
Natural dyes have been used to color textiles for centuries, but with the shift to mass production, the use of synthetic dyes has increased due to their lower cost and easy manufacturing volume. However, synthetic dyes (such as disperse blue dyes 106 and 124) have been reported to cause skin...
For mmWave Integrated Circuit (IC) design, co-integration of passives can reduce size and power consumption, increase reliability, and reduce overall cost. However, skin and proximity effects in the metallization are aggravated at mmWave frequencies, resulting in increased attenuation and degradation of overall performance. Furthermore, tight integration of passive components (to...
Lambic and other barrel-aged beer styles are gaining popularity in the United States and Europe and are often treated as a premium product that can command a premium price. However, these styles can be prone to spoilage during the barrel-aging process, which represents a significant time and product commitment by...
The Mixteco primarily reside in the Mexican State of Oaxaca in Southwestern Mexico. They have been arriving in larger numbers then ever before to this part of the North American continent in the last twenty years.Their experience is composed of different dynamics compared to those of their mainstream Mexican counterpart....
Coastal communities throughout the US West Coast and elsewhere are facing the daunting task of preparing for climate change impacts, particularly the hazards from increased flooding and erosion. With sea-level rise, changing storminess patterns, and possible changes to the frequency and severity of major El Niño events, communities are already...
Rhizopogon vesiculosus is a common ectomycorrhizal (EM) symbiont of Pseudotusga menziesii (Douglas-fir) in the coast range of the Pacific Northwest. The species has been studied for its systematics, genet size, population structure, and competitive ability in several field and experimental studies. This thesis seeks to provide a more thorough characterization...
Mercury and arsenic are known developmental toxicants and environmental exposures are ubiquitous worldwide from natural and anthropogenic sources. Prenatal exposure to both contaminants are independently associated with adverse perinatal health outcomes and latent disease risk that could be in part mediated by epigenetic reprogramming events. Fetal programming events involving DNA...
Scholars promote the ability of visual imagery to have a number of political campaigning benefits such as influencing opinions and attitudes and encouraging vibrant, striving democracy while improving the quality of public knowledge and opinion. However, previous research on this subject has failed to identify how presidential candidates display their...
This thesis is the first of three sections in what will be a book-long project of creative nonfiction essays. The book will parallel the author's diary with three other family diaries, spanning four generations. This thesis deals with the first of those diaries, written by Antonio Bonetti's, the author's great-grandfather....
Environmental contamination along roadways with lead from processed
petroleum and automotive residues has been reported. Toxicity to the herbivores grazing these areas has not been well studied. Comparison of lead concentrations adjacent to roads in Kuwait and in Oregon, USA was studied. Soil samples were taken from three sites at...
Fusion reactions with radioactive neutron-rich projectiles have been the subject of much recent theoretical and experimental interest. Predictions of enhancement of the cross section due to the use of a neutron-rich projectile may have implications for synthesis of heavy nuclei. In this work, the fusion-fission excitation functions were measured for...
This thesis presents a discussion of the main materialistic theories proposed to explain the process of development among the indigenous population of Latin America. Four theoretical approaches are presented and discussed. The first one deals with the social group referred to as peasants. The second one explains the process of...
This assessment outlines an enhanced planning approach for West Coast estuaries that incorporates an evaluation of the regional context for estuarine conservation and recommends an approach to site-scale planning with more focus on ecological processes and functions.
Ecosystems are facing increasing threats from human related activities, such as overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction, species invasions, and diseases, among others. While oceanic islands provide natural laboratories to understand ecological and evolutionary process, they are also particularly vulnerable to these impacts, given their usual isolation from the mainland and the...
Environmental stress can negatively affect the ability of organisms to reproduce. Energetic trade-offs exist in all organisms, and under stress, energy may be allocated away from reproduction and towards physiological defense and repair mechanisms. The rocky intertidal environment is ideal for investigating the influence of environmental stress, as organisms are...
The Mixteco primarily reside in the Mexican State of Oaxaca in Southwestern Mexico. They have been arriving in larger numbers then ever before to this part of the North American continent in the last twenty years.Their experience is composed of different dynamics compared to those of their mainstream Mexican counterpart....
I examined the avian biogeography of the islands of Lago Gatun, Panama, in an effort to better understand the effects of forest fragmentation in this biodiverse region, and specifically to understand the importance of fragment isolation and the mechanism behind its effects on tropical bird distribution. I combined exhaustive surveys...
Mathematical modeling plays a pivotal role in understanding the mechanism of radiation-induced cellular effects, and also in quantifying the radiation risk to the cell. However, there are still compelling challenges facing the conventional modeling in radiobiology, such as lacking a generalized theory structure of quantifying target effect and non-target effect...
Aroma is one of the major components that determines the quality of wine and consumer acceptability. Fruitiness is a highly desirable aroma quality in white wines and has been well accepted by consumers across the globe. Tropical fruit aroma has been substantially studied in Sauvignon Blanc wines due to its...
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DEDICATION
To the memory of my mother, Maria Jose de Castro Iobbi. Thank you for
The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to transformative developments across multiple sectors, fostering innovation and redefining our interactions with technology. As AI matures and becomes integrated into society, it offers numerous opportunities to address global challenges and revolutionize a wide array of human endeavors. These advances are driven...
Little scholarship exists on the contemporary trance dance movement known as Ecstatic Dance. This thesis investigates the myriad of pathways dancers in the Ecstatic Dance communities of Western Oregon experience movement-induced altered states of consciousness. A secondary aim was to provide a more visually and ethnographically accessible dance annotation system...
Analysis of observations on sequential events over time is common in real life. Sequential measurements over time describing the behavior of systems are usually called time series data, which have been collected in a wide range of disciplines. Over the years there have been multiple research areas in studying stochastic...
To be competitive in domestic and international markets, manufacturing management is routinely faced with the decision to automate or replace existing production facilities with advanced manufacturing technologies. Installation of advanced manufacturing technologies requires high capital investment, and there is much evidence to suggest that automation for automation's sake has proven...
Full Text:
:
Sabah U. Randhawa
Abstract approved:
Maria E. Hac er
To be competitive in domestic and international
Pb(Zr₀.₅₂Ti₀.₄₈)O₃ (PZT) thin films are of interest for their large dielectric permittivity, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties. The material has been widely studied for use in high frequency transducers, multi-layered capacitors, and ferroelectric random access memory. Copper foils are an inexpensive, flexible substrate with a low resistivity which makes them ideal...
Understanding the mechanisms that regulate local species diversity and community structure is a perennial goal of ecology. Local community structure can be viewed as the result of numerous local and regional processes; these processes act as filters that reduce the regional species pool down to the observed local community. In...
Understanding how wetland birds use habitat is pivotal to developing successful and
beneficial conservation strategies. Although it has been an ardent topic in forest
research for some time, how species interact with the spatial patterning of habitat
across a landscape (i.e., landscape structure) has been more or less neglected in...
This compilation follows the Fifty-Seven-Year Index to the Sierra Club Bulletin annuals, 1893-1949, compiled by Dorothy H. Bradley and George Shochat and published by the Club in 1952. This index covers the monthly issues from 1950 through 1976 as well as the annuals, which were dated as monthly issues but...
Landscape characteristics can strongly influence demographic and genetic processes in wildlife populations. Climate change and human land use are causing many landscapes to change rapidly, and the effects on wildlife populations must be understood to properly manage these threats and design effective conservation strategies. In this dissertation, I explored the...
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...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
The climate of the Pacific Northwest is in flux, and existing forest ecosystems are stressed and poised to shift in fundamental ways, with or without human intervention. This dissertation probes the nature of forest responses to environmental change through investigations of morphology and genetics of three species of alder co-occurring...
Premature birth interrupts the typical development of the human fetus, leaving the infant born with underdeveloped gastrointestinal and immune systems. Preterm infants have reduced stomach acidity, reduced digestive protease activity, more permeable intestinal membranes, impaired innate and adaptive immune response, and poor microbiome development. Due to these factors, preterm infants...
Teamwork has become a popular operational strategy applied as part of workforce management plans in manufacturing and service industries. Teamwork has been commonly used in organizations to pursue different goals such as increase business operations agility, boost company productivity, improve quality in operations, increase company flexibility, promote collaborative learning, hasten...