Oregon has one of the five highest homeless occupancy rates in the U.S., according to the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (2021). Using the current governor of Oregon’s (Tina Kotek) plan to decrease homelessness, which focuses primarily on housing developments and strategies, this study will first examine the merits of permanent...
Quantum mechanics is increasingly being taught with a spins-first approach where instructors use simple spin systems to introduce the principles of quantum mechanics rather than systems with wavefunctions. One of the defining characteristics of a spins-first approach is that systems studied have discrete bases, whereas systems with wavefunctions have continuous...
One of the pervasive problems arising in our modern, digital world surrounds data breaches where an adversary, through zero-day exploitations, phishing, or old-fashioned social engineering attacks, gains access to a service’s data stores. Our society increasingly relies on these cloud-based services for everything from our taxes to personal communication. As...
Natural products have long been an important source of resources for humans. Many of these compounds possess unique chemical structures and potent biological properties. By targeting natural products with specific chemical properties, we can gain a better understanding of the roles these compounds play in the environment and their interactions...
Multiagent learning offers a rich framework to address challenging real-world problems such as remote exploration and healthcare coordination, which require autonomous agents to express elaborate interactions. To be effective in such systems, agents must collectively reason about and pursue high-level, long-term, and possibly nebulous objectives while adapting their strategy to...
A secret sharing scheme allows a dealer to distribute a secret with a set of parties, such that only a certain subset of parties can collaborate and learn the shared secret. Traditional secret sharing schemes have been used as building blocks in various subdomains of cryptography. Recently, two new extensions...
Legged robots have consistently captured our collective imagination through various forms of media, from Hollywood films, anime, and viral Youtube videos of robots accomplishing incredible feats of acrobatics. These robots have the potential to navigate our environments, capable of completing tasks that would otherwise require human intervention. However, developing controls...
Nuclear material monitoring systems have long been established at ports of entry. However, there are no standard systems for monitoring points of interest within the country. Therefore, the use of a network of radiation sensors deployed throughout an area of interest is being investigated within this thesis. Before full scale...
Naked (hull-less) barley has historically been grown for food, but interest in, and breeding efforts for, its use in malting and brewing have increased due to the potential benefits: reduced off-flavors, reduced spent grain, and higher malt extract. These benefits are offset by limiting factors such as high b-glucan and...
We report the use of MIL-120 as a water-stable and cost-effective metal-organic framework (MOF) for selectively capturing CO₂ from wet flue gas. Synthesized using inexpensive and environmentally benign reagents in water, MIL-120 possesses one-dimensional pores decorated with hydroxyl-bridged Al(III) ions and benzene rings with an interstitial spacing of 4.78 Å....