Plastic pollution is an ever-increasing environmental threat. As large-scale plastics break down to form nanoscale plastics, it is essential to investigate their effects on freshwater ecosystems. With many plastic nanoparticle (NP) studies favoring the effects of common polystyrene (PS) plastics, a gap is formed for other common plastic types like...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices (within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied uniformly with precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant herbicide...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices ( within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied uniformly with precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices (within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied unifonnly with precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant herbicide...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices (within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied unifonnly with precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant herbicide...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices (within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied uniformly with CO₂ precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices (within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied uniformly with CO₂ precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices (within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied uniformly with CO₂ precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant...
Crops were grown at the experimental farms using accepted cultural practices (within the limits of experimentation) or trials were conducted on growers' fields. Most experiments were designed as randomized complete blocks with three to five replications. Herbicide treatments were applied uniformly with CO₂ precision plot sprayers. Unless otherwise indicated, preplant...
Objective: There are currently 6,000-7,000 recognized rare disorders, affecting approximately 1 in 10 Americans. While each rare disease is unique, the experience of having a rare condition is relatively common. It is this common experience of having a rare disease during the Covid-19 pandemic that we aim to represent with...
Water supplies are diminishing worldwide and by 2025 two thirds of the population could be living in regions of water scarcity (local demand for water is greater than water supply). One method to increase available water sources is to use desalination technologies to separate water from saline solutions. While desalination...
College students today have a lot to contend with in their journey as young adults. The college years are often a transitional time for students, and as such there is a vulnerability to mental health declines. Financial, academic, and social strain are some of the factors that can contribute to...
This thesis builds on a modeling tool that has been developed to link thermodynamic modeling and concrete performance. This tool is intended to predict the performance for modern concrete mixtures made with ordinary portland cement (OPC), conventional and novel supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), and limestone (Ls). The first part of...
Creating effective packaging is about finding a balance between product protection during shipping and time consumption in the design process. Given time and cost constraints, it is hard to produce sufficiently protective padding while having it not be thicker than it needs to be. This thesis describes a method to...
The ~5 km3, 4.54 to 4.09 Ma Caspana Ignimbrite of the Altiplano-Puna Volcanic Complex (APVC) of the Central Andes records the eruption of an andesite and two distinct rhyolitic magmas. It provides a unique opportunity to investigate the production of silicic magmas in a continental arc flare-up, where small volumes...
This dataset provides the observations used to answer questions of interest regarding how intersection and traffic characteristics impact the frequency and severity of bicycle-vehicle conflicts as part of the field data analysis portion of the study titled "SPR 833 Intersection Treatments and Bicyclist Safety." Parameters such as bicycle-vehicle conflicts (measured...
TiO₂ typically crystallizes into three polymorphs: brookite, rutile, and anatase. The phase selection problem in TiO₂ is the lack of understanding what conditions cause amorphous TiO₂ to crystallize into one of its three polymorphs during an annealing process. It has been recently shown that phase selection in TiO₂ is highly...
Humans benefit from being in nature and recreating, however outdoor recreation can negatively impact wildlife, including species of conservation concern such as the Pacific marten (Martes caurina). Densities of martens decline following intensive forest management activities, but impacts from recreation are relatively unstudied. My goal was to evaluate marten occupancy...
Students with disabilities are not being afforded the same access to sporting opportunities as their peers without disabilities. The purpose of this dissertation was to build on a foundation of information regarding collegiate adaptive sports through a Critical Disabilities Studies lens. Specific aims included: (1) identifying and describing intercollegiate, adaptive...
This dataset contains the chemical composition and reactivities of commercially used SCMs such as silica fume, Class-F and Class-C fly ashes, slags, and calcined clays. The dataset also includes the chemical composition and reactivity (where available) for several SCMs that are currently not specified in standard specifications by ASTM or...
The discovery of new blue pigments is a field of great interest, as commercially available pigments present properties that make them undesirable such as poor sustainability, cost, and stability. By researching solid solutions with the melilite structure, we discovered a new solid solution Sr2Zn1-xNixGe2O7, with 0.1 ≤ x ≤ 0.6,...
This book manuscript is a comprehensive guide to a lesser known part of Oregon's history, primarily during the Gold Rush of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With the most ghost towns out of any other state, Oregon's picturesque remains of these fascinating places are detailed through photography, personal...
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...
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...
Black Friday is the biggest day of spending in the United States. In 2020, consumers spent $9 billion on Black Friday alone, a 21.6% increase from the previous year (Zaki). Extensive research has been done on the behalf of stores on what motivates consumers to spend large amounts of money...
This is the final version of an essay on a student's connection to the land as part of their Writing Intensive Course, Forest Engineering FE460 Forest Operations Regulations and Policy Issues. The theme for the essay is the student's choice, but must include the history of the piece of land,...
The National Pygmy Goat Association is a hobby livestock organization founded in 1975. Over the past five decades, it has grown in size and importance, occupying a niche role as the primary breed registry and certification authority for the smallest domestic ruminant. This history attempts to capture the scope of...
In this dissertation, we consider two problems in number theory, both relating to modular forms. First we consider when a given modular form can be expressed as a quotient in Dedekind's $\eta$ function. Rouse and Webb \cite{RW} have determined the integers $N \leq 500$ such that the graded ring of...
This thesis explores how students can find Shakespeare relevant in this modern technological society by creating and editing two podcasts that summarize two well known Shakespeare plays, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Interviews are also included from Oregon State University students to see their perspectives from reading...
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is characterized by an accumulation of neutral lipids in the form of triglycerides and cholesterol esters accounting for >5% of liver weight. Excess neutral lipids accumulate in large lipid droplets, i.e., macrosteatosis, displacing the nucleus of cells. Current theory suggests neutral lipid accumulation is the...
School-based comprehensive sex education (CSE) can reduce adolescent sexual health problems. However, only 49-55% of adolescents receive CSE that meets national standards. African American youth (AAY), particularly males, are less likely to receive CSE. AAY evidence a high prevalence of STIs/teen pregnancy. Internet-based CSE offers a supplemental option. We examined...
Deeply weathered soils in tropical rainforests and savannas are classified as Ferralsols according to the World References Bases for Soil Resources (WRB). Ferralsols are most nearly akin to the Oxisols order defined in the US Soil Taxonomy. The acidity, low cation exchange capacity, and strong phosphorus retention by the oxidic...
This paper presents a brief discussion on the phenomenon of exercise-induced insulin sensitization, including the effects of exercise on insulin-stimulated glucose uptake and potential mechanisms mediating these effects. Originally created for KIN 481 (Writing Intensive Curriculum course).
There is no standardized method for culture of intervertebral disc (IVD) cells when monitoring metabolic processes. We hypothesize that the metabolic rates of cells that are crucial to experiment designs depend on the cell culture method used. The glycolytic pathway and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle are the pathways through...
Pacific Northwest temperate rainforests are anticipated to experience increasingly frequent and severe wildfires in the foreseeable future due to climate change, increased fuel loads, and deforestation. Soil, underlying these forests, is the largest terrestrial carbon (“C”) reservoir. Fire disturbance influences soil C persistence, the timeframe and magnitude of which remain...
In this dissertation, I present experimental observations of multiply charged atomic ions (MCAI) generated from interactions of atomic/molecular clusters with moderately intense nanosecond laser pulses. This process is also known as Coulomb explosion (CE) and it has been extensively studied in intense laser fields using ultrashort pulses. Several prevailing theories...
Continuous Improvement (CI) of academic computing programs is a main requirement of accreditation. Academic computing programs must have a well-documented CI plan in order to be granted accreditation. Based on the existing literature, we developed a comprehensive CI (or 360-CI) model consisting of 8 components: course, curriculum, administration, faculty, research,...
Pediatricians and other physicians in the United States identify themselves with various religious or spiritual affiliations and use its practices and customary ways to influence their medical practice. Pediatricians and physicians affiliated in the pediatric medical field have an important role in monitoring the health of many children, teenagers, and...
In the United States, rates of youth vaping are alarmingly high. In 2018, the U.S Surgeon General declared youth vaping as an epidemic (Truth Initiative, 2019a). However, LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately affected. In 2017, current e-cigarette usage in youth was 13.2% among heterosexuals, but was 17.5% in LGBTQ+ youth (CDC,...
In high volume automated discrete item batch production systems, the batches or lots are typically fixed quantity (i.e., size), with setups incurred between the different production lots. Processing times for the fixed-size lots are relatively constant when the workstation is operating however, random workstation disruptions cause variability in the lot...
Recent observations of tidewater glaciers find that the currently accepted model for predicting ice melt vastly underestimates observed melt rates. The release of pressurized air bubbles into the ocean from pores in the ice is one process that can amplify glacier melt. To incorporate this process into models, we need...
Recently, the definition of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has evolved to also encompass environmental and contextual factors, termed expanded ACEs (Lipscomb et al., 2021). Given that responsive relationships in early childhood may dampen the response to traumatic stressors in the context of conventional ACEs (Flinn & England et al., 1997),...
In this project I explore waste as a resource and demonstrate how it can be useful to reclaim for art because of its abundance and accessibility. I constructed 3 art pieces from waste products to demonstrate this concept. The gallery is called My Mosaics and it is a greater expression...
Vaccines are an incredibly important piece of preventative medicine, yet trends have emerged of parents refusing to vaccinate their children. My goal was to create an illustrated storybook that summarizes what a vaccine is, and how it enhances the body to fight disease. The book is designed to be read...
This paper looks into the participants in Black Lives Matter-related communication on the social media app TikTok and the content they posted. Using grounded theory, the information gathered from Black Lives Matter TikTok videos was analyzed to determine the goals of the content creators, as well as the feasibility of...
This dissertation consists of two qualitative grounded theory studies on the professional development process experienced by first year high school counselors during the United States’ 2020 public health and sociopolitical crises. Chapter two contains the first study which answers the research question: What is the professional development process experienced by...
As the world’s population continues to increase every year, a greater proportion of people are living in urban environments. This process of global urbanization has been previously shown to affect evolution of plants and animals by restricting gene flow, increasing genetic drift, and causing divergent selection between rural and urban...
The widespread adoption of computerized systems around the turn of the century as a means of more efficiently conducting elections introduced more issues than these computer systems were intended to address. Though many of these flaws were not considered for years or decades after the introduction of digital election infrastructure,...
As medicine in the United States has progressed, physicians have been posed with a unique task of shepherding patients into the end of their life. This research sought to determine the effect this has on physicians in the form of what has been coined “professional grief.” In this, we look...
Each year, whether it be under voluntary or unvoluntary circumstances, countless professional athletes retire from their sport. Even by the average retirement age of 30, many are still underprepared to face the challenges that accompany the transition. Along with the changes in schedule, identity, and social group, numerous professional athletes...
Since underrepresented nominees began filling U.S. Supreme Court seats, political scientists have examined the possibility of existing biases towards potential judges based upon their identities or innate characteristics. Some scholars have identified that the gender identification and ethnic affiliations of candidates have affected the behaviors displayed by those involved in...
Estrogen (E2) is essential for multiple physiological effects in females, ensuring maximum reproductive fitness and maintaining skeletal homeostasis. E2 has been shown to stimulate cancellous bone formation via activation of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), an effect widely accepted to be mediated directly at bone. A recent landmark study by Herber...
New detrital mica ages from the Umpqua Group of the Oregon Coast Range provide constraints on models of Eocene sedimentation. Based on sandstone petrography, previous studies assert that the Klamath Mountains to the south are the most likely source region for Umpqua Group sedimentary provenance. However, the presence of Late...
The Arabidopsis thaliana developmental promoters of WUSCHEL (WUS) and COLD SHOCK DOMAIN PROTEIN 3 (CSP3) were tested for their suitability as potential control elements for the Cre-Lox recombination system in poplar cells. To remove the integrated transgene after CRISPR machinery has modified the genome, timely control of Cre is required....
As one of the most popular data types, the point cloud is widely used in various appli- cations, including computer vision, computer graphics and robotics. The capability to directly measure 3D point clouds is invaluable in those applications as depth information could remove a lot of the segmentation ambiguities in...
Most marine fishes experience high rates of mortality during their early life history stages with far reaching consequences for adult population dynamics. Within a few weeks of hatching, relatively small changes in larval growth and mortality rates can lead to orders of magnitude variability in year-class strength. Growth and survival...
The contributions of Palestinian women have historically been discredited and delegitimized. This has occurred both due to societal patriarchy, and due to patriarchal norms being exacerbated by the conditions of living under the violent Israeli occupation and settler colonialism. Yet in actuality, Palestinian women have played many diverse roles in...
Automatic Music Transcription is a growing area of interest in Music Information Retrieval, and recent research has shown promise using onset detection on spectrograms. We propose a deep learning model that takes raw audio as input in order to transcribe a solo piano performance from audio to MIDI without complicated...
The interface between a biofilm and the underlying substrate to which it is attached is challenging to study. Currently, available methods of studying this microenvironment have not been able to record data in real-time over a time period in the range of days. To address this challenge, we report the...
This study aims to evaluate the relationship between the social determinants of health and substance use disorder (SUD) in Oregon. Data was collected from various public databases to represent the social and environmental conditions of the 18 most populated counties in Oregon. Substance use disorder data was also collected for...
Reflection on a stage management experience for a musical produced at Oregon State University. Comparison from previous high school experiences in stage managing to the university level of stage management. Reference to the texts and resources examined for the growth of knowledge in stage management. Analysis of each stage of...
Bee populations are declining around the globe, while the need for their pollination services is increasing with growing food demands by an expanding population. There is a need for innovative practices to increase pollination in agricultural environments without harming wild bee populations. However, the use of artificial visual attractants has...
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the governing body for collegiate athletics and has regulated the activity of student-athletes with the primary goal of preserving amateurism. In recent years, the restrictions of this principle have been challenged in court. The Supreme Court case NCAA v. Alston (2021) challenged the...
Metal-oxo clusters can be described as soluble pieces of metal-oxide frameworks. Metal-oxo clusters are also the building blocks for the Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and coordination polymers. A better knowledge of metal-oxo clusters helps fundamentally understand geosciences, molecular engineering, catalysis, single-molecule magnetism, and MOFs for synthesis, design, and modification of these...
Aluminum alloys are popular in aerospace and automotive industries because of their relatively high strength-to-weight ratio. The study of enhancing aluminum’s mechanical properties through grain refinement is especially important. One such technique is High-Pressure Torsion processing (HPT), which leads to significant grain size refinement and enhances mechanical properties like ductility...
Ocean acidification affects all organisms that incorporate calcium carbonate into their structure, including coralline algae. Coralline algae are a key component of the intertidal ecosystem on the Oregon coast which is why it is important that we understand how the potential loss of coralline algae to ocean acidification will impact...
Since the mid-nineteenth century, different waves of feminism have shaped a more fair, equitable world for women. Today, the fourth wave of feminism brings about a new initiative that focuses on menstruation. This traditionally taboo topic has formed failing policies that neglect the care, empowerment, and importance of women’s bodies,...
Task persistence has been associated with task mastery in many different realms of learning, and is thought to be evoked particularly through the observation of positive models; however, the capability of such exposures to transfer across domains is not currently well-understood. The present study sought to examine the effect of...
Centerline rumble strips (CLRS) have proven to be a cost-effective safety measure in reducing lane departure crashes. However, there are often unintended consequences associated with the installation of CLRS, particularly in rural mountainous areas or snow zones. These consequences include the accumulation of water and ice on the roadway and...
Aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) are significant sources of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the environment. Current analytical methods that provide quantitative measures of individual PFAS in AFFFs, such as liquid chromatography – tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), are often complicated, time-consuming, and expensive. Methods for total fluorine analysis, though quantitative,...
When the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, eligibility for Medicaid was expanded to include people whose income was less than 138% of the federal poverty level. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that states could choose whether to expand their Medicaid programs or not. The objective of this...
Background: Body Mass Index (BMI) is used as a quick and inexpensive tool to measure populations at risk for a number of metabolic and chronic conditions. In part due to its simplicity, BMI has been criticized for its inaccurate prediction concerning health outcomes. Due to the diversity in the United...
Recent shifts from clearcutting to partial retention harvesting on many ownerships and the importance of microclimate dynamics on biotic responses to regional climate highlight the need to understand how microclimate conditions in forest understories differ across gradients of partial overstories. This study compares below-canopy near-surface temperatures at 2cm above ground...
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 examines the student employment experience within the field of higher education through an auto-ethnographic lens. The factors that contribute to the overall well-being and success of student employees in higher education are explored. The literature related to the student employment experience is limited, with much of the data...
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is known for altering the social and political landscape of the United States during a particularly tumultuous, divided period. The novel, which tells the story of enslaved man Uncle Tom, had wide influence and was considered to help “lay the groundwork for the Civil...
The majority of people suffer from back pain at some point in their lives. Back pain is the leading cause of disability globally, ahead of 290 other conditions1. Over one million people in the United States receive spine surgery annually2. This thesis looked at five standard surgical procedures performed on...
This algorithm presents the first steps towards a solution for novice database administrators that helps them transform a non-normalized relational database into a database in the third normal form. The algorithm uses relational algebra operations that apply principles from the third normal form. This provides the database administrator with an...
Over 76 cities throughout the United States have already adopted policies to limit the expansion of natural gas, mainly through updates to city codes that ban natural gas infrastructure in new construction. Rising concern over the environmental and public health impacts of methane - a greenhouse gas with a much...
The development of a continuous and reliable cooling method for computer chips is an evolving subject requiring continuous research in both computer science and thermal management. Two-color laser induced fluorescence (LIF) provides a non-invasive way to investigate electronics cooling fluid behavior. Dielectric fluids are of particular interest as they allow...
Prior research has demonstrated that unique and salient objects in a visual display may capture an individual’s attention. However, researchers have shown that some individuals, such as those with video game experience, are better at resisting salient-driven capture compared to others (Chisholm et al., 2010). The first manuscript presented in...
In 2020, Oregon suffered one of the worst wildfire seasons on record, with a higher percent of forest area burn, the destruction of residential areas, and the risk to human health. The level of intensity of these wildfires were due to the effects of climate change and Oregon wildfire seasons...
0.1 Purpose of Report
During my time on this project, I have written two reports. My SAE22 ePowertrain report details last year's design, the design process, design changes, and manufacturing in extreme detail. The capstone course report will be useful for future students looking to educate themselves on everything that...
Biological invasions threaten native biodiversity, alter ecosystem function, and are a major cause of economic losses across the planet. The most impactful invaders alter disturbance regimes and initiate state shifts to outside the historical range of variability of the ecosystem. Concern for ecological and economic losses has prompted a rapid...
One way to support the transgender and gender diverse (TGD) community is by calling out microaggressions. Bystander readiness to call out microaggressions may be influenced by a bystander’s perception of harm caused by the microaggression and stereotypes surrounding the identity of the microaggressor. In this study, I focused on the...
This thesis describes an automated method to estimate tree trunk width in a commer-cial apple orchard. Trunk cross sectional area, which is an important consideration with regards to nutrient uptake, is a feature being integrated in a decision support system for precision Nitrogen management. The data used to generate the...
With Alzheimer’s disease being the most prominent form of dementia, finding potential treatments for the disease is imperative. This study explored the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug ibuprofen as a potential treatment to normalize the hyperactive N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) within the 5xFAD mice early in the disease pathology before cognitive decline. Female...
The natural production of methane via anaerobic digestion (AD) is facilitated by a complex community of microorganisms, primarily bacteria and archaea, referred to as the AD microbiome. AD is growing in prominence as a solution to the disposal of food waste, sewage sludge, and the organic fraction of municipal solid...
Genetic code expansion is a technology that allows for site-specific incorporation of noncanonical amino acids into recombinant proteins at amber stop codons using engineered translational machinery. The technology allows for expanded study into proteins, derived from the integration of novel chemical functions found in noncanonical amino acids, such as fluorescence,...
The Jovanovic lab at Oregon State University (OSU) is developing iCore, a versatile blood processing platform which leverages microfluidic process intensification via increased mass transfer efficiency and decreased device footprint with the goal of creating a portable, wearable device. One application of iCore is for the treatment of hyperferremia resulting...
North American bird populations have declined throughout the past half century. The majority of studies quantifying these declines have focused on spring and summer breeding birds; not the season of scarcity, winter. We re-surveyed 7 large study plots in Douglas fir forests initially surveyed in winter during the late 1960s...
We have sufficient evidence that our historical management of natural resources is not sustainable. Food production is stagnating or declining. Nonrenewable energy sources on which the energy sector has historically depended are being rapidly depleted. Water resources, for which the energy and food sectors compete, are being depleted and impaired....
The nucleocapsid of SARS-CoV-2 is critical for viral genome packaging through binding to viral genomic RNA. Liquid-liquid phase separation, or LLPS, is the formation of microscopic, rapidly reversible, liquid-like immiscible droplets. There is increasing scientific evidence that LLPS underlies the formation of membraneless compartments within cells and that this process...
The Vietnamese population that migrated to the United States is largely tied to South Vietnam. As the population settled, their strong opposition to communism has driven many in the community towards political alignment with the alt-right and even white nationalists. The proximity to these movements and their seeming tolerance of...
Ultrafast spectroscopy can exploit the structure-function relationship of chemical- and biological-based systems. More specifically, femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) provides ground- and excited-state vibrational information with simultaneously high spectral (spatial) and temporal resolutions. The electronic counterpart, femtosecond transient absorption (fs-TA), complements FSRS data analysis as part of a comprehensive approach...
In a longitudinal study in Sweden, whether people who have been abused or neglected by their parents in childhood are more prone to violence and mental illness in adulthood. Therefore this paper focuses on the relationship between childhood abuse or neglect and adult violence.
Subjects were male (n = 199),...
Sexual health is an important part of quality of life for adolescents and young adults (AYAs), but a cancer diagnosis and treatment can have severe physical and psychosocial consequences on this aspect of health. Despite the frequency and distressing nature of sexual health concerns among AYA cancer survivors, sexual health...
We do not know how to align a very intelligent AI agent's behavior with human interests. I investigate whether—absent a full solution to this AI alignment problem—we can build smart {\ai} agents which have limited impact on the world, and which do not autonomously seek power. In this thesis, I...
Mountain pine beetles (MPB) have killed millions of acres of forest throughout the Rocky Mountain ecoregion in the United States and Canada and climate change may be intensifying outbreaks. Climate change can change forest ecosystems and dynamics by increasing drought conditions and intensifying heat waves. Due to changing climate conditions,...