Engineering practice is aptly described as a unique culture, shaped by a long history of social learning, norms and values. As these systems and values have been constructed to the benefit of white men, it is unsurprising that the study of engineering culture has revealed many structures working against the...
On June 20, 2017, members of the environmental engineering and science (EES) community convened at the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Biennial Conference for a workshop on antimicrobial resistance. With over 80 registered participants, discussion groups focused on the following topics: risk assessment, monitoring, wastewater treatment, agricultural...
On June 20, 2017, members of the environmental engineering and science (EES) community convened at the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Biennial Conference for a workshop on antimicrobial resistance. With over 80 registered participants, discussion groups focused on the following topics: risk assessment, monitoring, wastewater treatment, agricultural...
The VISualization of Terrestrial and Aquatic Systems (VISTAS) software development project began with the proposition that visualization would increase the ability of scientists to explore and communicate their data, especially complex datasets that span multiple spatial and temporal scales. A case study of VISTAS articulates how and why scientists intend...
Calls for reform within engineering education frequently cite the need to better prepare the future workforce for the imminent challenges that they will face. The focus in preparing students for the workforce is often on the educational system and not on understanding the actual workplace. But if we are to...
Development of wave and offshore wind-based marine renewable energy is anticipated on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off Oregon and much of the Pacific Northwest in the coming decade. Multiple issues related to environmental considerations and information needs remain for these emerging industries. The Oregon Marine Renewable Energy Environmental Science...
Women are highly-underrepresented in undergraduate engineering majors, making up just over 15% of students in engineering and computer science at Oregon State University. High school girls' interest in pursuing engineering in college is affected by the way language frames engineering careers. The status-quo engineering frame is made up of terms...
The purpose of the study is to gauge the scope of bioenergy opportunities by identifying and profiling bioenergy projects and potential projects in Oregon, and learning directly from developers the key challenges and issues this nascent sector faces. Bioenergy projects are defined as projects that would produce biofuels (ethanol and...
The Tualatin River Basin is located in the Washington County, Oregon. The river was detected having high chlorophyll a concentration and low dissolved oxygen concentration during summer time, which violated DEQ water quality standards. A mathematical model (HSPF) was used to simulate physical, chemical and biological processes in the basin...
A theoretical argument is presented to suggest that engineering curriculum be
designed to develop social capital. Additionally, the value of social capital in the
retention of students in the College of Engineering, and the development, role, and value
of social capital in an electrical engineering laboratory is evaluated. Data collected...
Project Loom is a system of sensors, actuators, processors, and wireless connectivity chips that the user can pick and choose from in order to create an Internet of Things application that fits their desired needs. The modularity of the system and ease of use allows for the user to create...
Gender has been the subject of study in engineering education and science social research for decades. However, little attention has been given to transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) experiences or perspectives. The role of cisgender or gender conforming status has not been investigated nor considered in prevailing frameworks of gender...
Background: When conducting research with American Indian tribes, informed consent beyond conventional institutional review board (IRB) review is needed because of the potential for adverse consequences at a community or governmental level that are unrecognized by academic researchers. Objectives: In this article, we review sovereignty, research ethics, and data-sharing considerations...
Engineered capillary barriers typically consist of two layers of granular materials designed so that the contrast in material hydraulic properties and sloping interface retain infiltrating water in the upper layer. We conducted two benchtop capillary barrier experiments, followed by interpretation and numerical modeling. The hydraulic parameters for two coarse materials...
The accurate prediction of winter injury caused by low-temperature events is a key component of the effective cultivation of woody and herbaceous perennial plants. A common method employed to visualize geographic patterns in the severity of low-temperature events is to map a climatological variable that closely correlates with plant survival....
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has been sponsoring workshops for undergraduate engineering professors since 1984. The workshops were designed to educate engineering professors about the importance of addressing health and safety issues in their undergraduate engineering curricula. This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of...
Spatial climate datasets of 1981–2010 long-term mean monthly average dew point and minimum and maximum vapor pressure deficit were developed for the conterminous United States at 30-arcsec (~800m) resolution. Interpolation of long-term averages (twelve monthly values per variable) was performed using PRISM (Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model). Surface stations...
Ice-free cryopreservation, known as vitrification, is an appealing approach for banking of adherent cells and tissues because it prevents dissociation and morphological damage that may result from ice crystal formation. However, current vitrification methods are often limited by the cytotoxicity of the concentrated cryoprotective agent (CPA) solutions that are required...
Science is one of the fundamental building blocks of modern societies, and though some science topics are easily accepted by public audiences, others generate intense social controversy by challenging beliefs that are fundamental to a person’s, or group’s, identity. The Theory of Evolution is one of these “hot-button” issues, as...
The thermal oxidation of submicron metallic Zn particles was studied as a method to form nanostructured ZnO films. The particles used for this work were characterized by electron microscopy, x ray diffraction, and thermal analysis to evaluate the Zn-ZnO core shell structure, surface morphology, and oxidation characteristics. Significant nanostructural changes...
Industrial Engineering is a broad discipline, with a wide range of definitions for the field and the knowledge areas that make up its parts. A conceptual gap exists between the definition of the field of Industrial Engineering and the definitions of each of these parts. To facilitate advancement of the...
The 2011 M[subscript W] = 9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake generated a large number of unique soil liquefaction case histories, including cases with strong ground motion recordings on liquefiable or potentially liquefiable soils. We have compiled a list of 22 strong motion stations (SMS) where surface evidence of liquefaction was observed and...
Sensor networks are revolutionizing environmental monitoring by producing massive quantities of data that are being made publically available in near real time. These data streams pose a challenge for ecologists because traditional approaches to quality assurance and quality control are no longer practical when confronted with the size of these...
Urban areas currently cover a small fraction of Oregon’s landscape but will expand to accommodate an increasingly large proportion of the state’s growing population and economic activity. Residential developments on rural lands now cover more than twice the area occupied by Oregon’s urban developments and are growing rapidly. Oregon urban...
Driven by major scientific advances in analytical methods, biomonitoring, computation, and a newly articulated vision for a greater impact in public health, the field of exposure science is undergoing a rapid transition from a field of observation to a field of prediction. Deployment of an organizational and predictive framework for...
There are typically two responses to the complex environmental problems of our time: 1) doom and gloom and 2) optimism. There is a lot of doom and gloom in the environmental literature. This literature warns that the future portends danger for humans and their life support systems. But when one...
Nonthermal plasmas generate high concentrations of excited species that can simultaneously exist at high energy and far from thermodynamic equilibrium, making them useful tools in chemistry and engineering. Microplasmas, roughly defined as plasmas that are generated within sub-millimeter dimensions, provide enhanced stability, improved excited species density, increased nonequilibrium properties, higher...
Expensive pricing for laboratory bioreactors proves to be the main barrier-to-entry for lab-scale academic research. Most laboratory bioreactors are priced at $100K+ and require significant training to use, thereby limiting their accessibility. The IDEAL (Intuitive, Developmental And Research Oriented, Easy To Use, Affordable, And Low Volume) Bioreactor aims to solve...
Atmospheric pressure plasma is non-thermal at millimeter to micrometer separations. It represents an alternative low exergy initiator of many chemical reactions. In many instances heat, light or sound are not efficient providers of the necessary energy to overcome chemical activation barriers. The focus of this research is applying dc nonthermal...
The objectives of this study are: (1) to evaluate the effect of reference
displacement on wall behavior under fully reversed cyclic loading using the
CUREE test protocol and (2) to assess damage accumulation (visible fastener
damage and stiffness degradation) for the imposed drift levels. All tests were
conducted on identical...
The epistemic practices that make up engineering are poorly understood and there is a lack of empirical research on this topic. Characterizing the epistemic practices of engineering students, faculty, and professionals is critical to creating effective curriculum that aids in developing student’s epistemic practices. Doing so allows us to better...
Oregon State University has initiated two programs that engage engineering students in entrepreneurship. The first program is an entrepreneurship minor available through the College of Business that enrolls engineering and science majors in the same courses with business students. The second is the Austin Entrepreneurship Program, a residential program offered...
Recent state and national standards have increased the interest in engineering at the K-12 level. Science standards, in particular, have begun to make the case for including engineering throughout the K-12 scope of study. Despite the increased attention to engineering, the characteristics and uniqueness of the field of engineering are...
The underlying aim of my dissertation was to contribute knowledge that may better support and foster STEM education improvement initiatives at public research universities. The two research studies included in my dissertation advance knowledge per perspectives of key stakeholders targeted by initiatives attempting to foster change, students and faculty. In...
This report focuses on the use of ecological indicators to evaluate ecological restoration effectiveness, particularly restoration aimed at salmonid recovery and watershed restoration efforts under the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds. Part 1 addresses conceptual issues including how indicators can be linked to monitoring, how conceptual models can be...
In a society where equality is sought as the norm, occupational gender representation is still skewed in some disciplines. One field where gender equality in representation has not yet been achieved is engineering, whether in college or at the professional level. This imbalance is not only a potentially vicious cycle...
An important goal of engineering educators is to prepare students to interact and communicate with other professionals, especially other engineers. Object and process scale is a crucial concept that engineers are required to communicate frequently and effectively. The goal of this study is to characterize how engineers communicate scale within...
A database to be used by electrical circuit design, test, and repair expert systems must support both structural data and inferential data about the circuit. It is well known that engineering databases must support dynamic schema (re)definition of the structural data and entity-based access to it. We analyze this requirement...
The City of Newport (City) plans to develop a tsunami evacuation site to serve the South Beach area. The proposed site consists of an undeveloped hill located adjacent to Highway 101, southwest of the Yaquina Bay Bridge (Figure 1A, Appendix A). The site will be designated Safe Haven Hill. This...
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are important in the teaching of undergraduate students (Golde & Dore, 2001). However, they are often poorly prepared for teaching (Luft, Kurdziel, Roehrig, & Turner, 2004). This dissertation addresses teaching effectiveness in three related manuscripts:
1. A position paper...
Known as the fourth industrial revolution, digitization is an ongoing trend in all fields, in which various industries are integrating information technologies to support and improve their businesses. Nuclear technology industries have also increased their interest in data-driven methods by leveraging the potential of pattern recognition to identify anomalies and...
We used spatial optimization to analyze alternative restoration scenarios and quantify tradeoffs for a large, multifaceted restoration program to restore resiliency to forest landscapes in the western US. We specifically examined tradeoffs between provisional ecosystem services, fire protection, and the amelioration of key ecological stressors. The results revealed that attainment...
This grant supported acquisition of a minicomputer system for departmental research. The equipment selected is a DEC VAX-11/750 system, installed in remodeled space in the Computer Science (formerly Farm Crops) Building. Grant funds for equipment acquisition were supplemented by support from the Tektronix Foundation.
After completion of the physical facilities...
Published July 1974. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Research in geoscience often requires transmission of significant amounts of data from remote locations. The emergence of microcontrollers and open-source sensors are allowing connectivity to affordable, distributed in-situ monitoring. This report describes the OPEnS Hub, a modular data hub orders of magnitude cheaper than commercial dataloggers when scaled to multiple...
This report establishes an industry knowledge base for existing anchoring and mooring techniques as applied to wave energy conversion (WEC) devices in and around Oregon. This report on anchoring and mooring techniques is derived from the cumulative experiences of engineers and scientists with many years of experience analyzing, designing and...
Among the myriad of naturally occurring bioactive compounds are the aminocyclopentitol-containing natural products that represent a family of sugar-derived microbial secondary metabolites, such as the antibiotics pactamycin, allosamidin, and trehazolin. Pactamycin, a structurally unique aminocyclitol antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces pactum, consists of a 5-membered ring aminocyclitol (cyclopentitol) unit, two aromatic...
The world’s ocean and estuaries fascinate many – from oceanographers studying the deep-sea to resource managers regulating fishing seasons to children finding their first seashell on the beach. The complexity of the marine environment is reflected in the specialized and interdisciplinary journals covering marine science. Journals can focus on particular...
Ethanol from corn is produced using dry grind corn process in which simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) is one of the most critical unit operations. In this work an optimal controller based on a previously validated SSF model was developed by formulating the SSF process as a Bolza problem and...
Our oceans surround us, and we depend upon them for food, transportation, and recreation. They affect us daily as they shape our climate and rattle our world with unexpected events. Current headlines indicate that they are in flux and perhaps in trouble. Coral reefs are dying due to rising ocean...
People of all ages are intrigued by the ocean, its inhabitants, dynamics and future. Our knowledge grows, but we change the ocean as we use its resources thus creating environmental problems and management challenges. When this volume is published, the Gulf of Mexico will not have recovered from the Deepwater...
Decades of educational research has not reached and benefited most students due to the "implementation gap." The implementation gap is a term used to describe the divide between the number of research-based curricular materials created and the number that are broadly used in classrooms. A common approach to researching this...
"This report concerns one aspect of the marina permit evaluation process: water quality impacts related to marina circulation and flushing efficiency. These physical properties vary with the wind, tide range, water density and physical dimensions of a marina. Water quality is affected by the degree of flushing, and sediment redistribution...
Cognitive and other neural processes emerge from the interactions be- tween neurons. Major advances have been made in studying networks in which the interac- fions occur instantaneously by means ofgraded synapses (Guckenheimer and Rowat, I 997). In other networks, the interaction between neurons involves time-delayed signals (action potentials or spikes)...
In Earth science, we must often collect data from sensors installed in remote locations. Retrieving these data and storing them can be challenging. Present options include proprietary commercial dataloggers, communication devices, and protocols with rigid software and data structures that may require ongoing expenses. While there are open-source solutions that...
Cadmium is a common impurity in phosphatic fertilizers and may contribute to soil Cd accumulation. Changes in total and bioavailable Cd burdens to agricultural soils and the potential for plant Cd accumulation resulting from fertilizer input was investigated. Three year field studies were conducted using three dose levels of cadmium-rich,...
"... the major thrust of this study is to: 1. Identify and rank by priority all vulnerable resources in the study area, 2. Designate specific areas for protection and determine how physical processes will effect their vulnerability, 3. Suggest suitable protective and cleanup response measures, 4. Map resource locations, boom...
Citizen science is a term broadly used to describe activities that typically involve the public in the process, methods, and standards of scientific research with the aim of advancing scientific knowledge or application. Engagement in citizen science for project and program volunteers is influenced by much more than an individual’s...
Potentially relevant literature for the years 1990-1999 was identified by (a) conducting keyword searches of computerized bibliographic databases, especially CAB Abstracts and Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts, (b) reading through the tables of contents of a few especially relevant journals, (c) searching the internet for pertinent bibliographies, and (d) to...
Within the field of science communication, the voices, perspectives, and experiences of the LGBTQ+ community have long been kept at the margins. This has led to a gap in material that recognizes queer individuals and communities as audiences, communicators, and stakeholders in STEM. I address this gap by generating a...
"Indexed herein are references to literature pertaining to the marine waters of Oregon. References to papers, depending on the subject matter contained in the paper, are indexed under one or more of the following headings: Marine Biology, Climate, Fisheries, Geology, Hydrology, Chemical and Physical Oceanography, and Bibliographies, Literature Surveys and...
Concerns about the extent to which major Pacific Northwest floods over the last decade might have been exacerbated by logging have heightened the need for a better scientific understanding of the role of forest maturity on snow accumulation and melt. To address this need, a multi-scale field and modeling study...
In this thesis, I conduct an analysis of paradigmatic background assumptions deployed in engineering decision-making processes, in order to understand how these assumptions, operating tacitly and in tension with each other, contribute to decisions that are ethically less effective and less substantial than they would otherwise be. I do so...
Producing precise and helpful error messages for type inference is still a challenge for implementations of functional languages. Current approaches often lack precision in terms of locating the origins of type errors. Moreover, suggestions for how to fix type errors that are offered by some tools are also often vague...
This report examines environmental factors influencing the die-off and transport of fecal coliform bacteria present in wastes applied to the land surface. These factors are examined specifically for dairy waste management systems and the net effect each system has on runoff water quality. A model is developed that considers the...
The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences, Inc. (CUAHSI) began the Hydrologic Measurement Facility (HMF) program in June 2005 to advance hydrologic measurement capability within the research community. To provide guidance for this effort, a recent survey assessed the level of need among the hydrological sciences community...
This study was conducted to determine the level of knowledge required
by graduating manufacturing engineering students in various
manufacturing engineering competency areas as perceived by managers
of manufacturing from 17 major manufacturing industrial classifications
in the state of Oregon.
Methods and Procedures
A preliminary listing of competency areas was developed...