The incorporation of experimental archaeology into the study of lithic technologies has provided archaeologists with a framework to understand past behaviors. The analysis of stone tools has the potential to reveal morphologic characteristics unique to the manufacture, use, and maintenance of stone tools. The implementation of controlled experiments to identify...
The Willamette Valley, west of the Cascade mountain range in the state of Oregon, is home to a growing number of vineyards. This rather recent, booming industry of the region has become an important component of the economy of the state’s agriculture since the late 1960’s, contributing more than $1.56...
Full Text:
and Effects on Pinot Noir Fruit in Oregon
Sarah K. Wright1,, Laurent Deluc, PhD2, Robert R. Martin
This essay evaluates the effectiveness of NGO strategies to promote program sustainability using a case study of two NGOs that install biosand water filters in Cambodia. While the ownership-focused strategy of cost-sharing is the most commonly used and studied, there is evidence to suggest that certain more neglected strategies can...
Geochemical characterization methods are commonly used in the reconstruction of prehistoric raw material use and procurement systems. Trace element studies of lithic source material and artifacts, specifically those made of obsidian, can reveal important information about the environmental and cultural factors which influence the prehistoric distribution of raw material. The...
Graphium sp., a eukaryotic alkanotroph, is able to oxidize small-molecular weight gaseous n-alkanes, diethyl ether and the branched ether, methyl tert butyl ether
(MTBE). However, information regarding the biochemistry of fungal-mediated alkane and ether metabolism is limited, and questions regarding the identity of alkane oxidation catalysts and the genetic underpinnings...
The multistage model of carcinogenesis states that an accumulation of mutations in genes that are important for maintaining cellular homeostasis may lead to cancer. A specific type of mutation observed in particular types of cancer is the CC-->TT mutation found in the TP53 gene of patients with basal or squamous...
Internal conflicts are detrimental to a country’s development for a number of reasons. Therefore, it is beneficial to identify the factors that lead to internal conflict. The three perspectives used to understand why internal conflicts occur are the systemic lens, the individualist perspective, and an interpretation that emphasizes the role...
Food insecurity (FI) is a commonly understood issue in colleges including Oregon State University (OSU), yet examining FI yields deeper complexities of great interest. Food insecurity at OSU is a symptom in a greater complex of basic needs pressures experienced by students in the higher education system, including financial, social,...
This study sought to examine food choice motives and influences among Oregon Latinos to gain a greater understanding of their dietary acculturation. Previous studies relying principally on quantitative methods to assess the relationship between acculturation and diet have reported inconsistent results, though a general decline in diet quality is reported...
California and Steller sea lions (Zalophus californianus, Eumetopias jubatus, respectively) are considered sentinel species because they have long life spans, are long-term coastal residents, feed at high trophic levels, and have large blubber stores that serve as depots for anthropogenic toxicants. There are few studies on sea lion health and...
A phase distribution parameter has been added to the one-dimensional two-phase horizontal flow conservation equations. The phase distribution parameter was incorporated into the conservation equations in an attempt to add stability and remove correlation switching by incorporating gravity. Determination of the phase distribution parameter requires an average void fraction profile...
Plasma vitamin B₁₂ concentrations of 16 elderly women were
measured using the growth response of the microorganism, Ochromonas
malhamensis. The method required major modifications which
are described in detail. All women had plasma concentrations of
vitamin B₁₂ above the normal minimum of 200 pg/ml despite the fact
that the diets...
The cabbage flea beetle, Phyllotreta cruciferae (Coleoptera:
Chrysomelidae) was introduced into the United States from Europe
during the 1920's and 1930's. It was described as a new species,
P. columbiana, native to North America by F. H. Chittenden in 1927.
This synonymic situation was discovered in 1953 after P. cruciferae...
This investigation is a study of how the magnitude
and energy distribution of the photoelectric current from
the light emergent side of thin silver films varies with
film thickness. The Fowler-Dubridge graphical analysis
of the energy distribution of photoelectrons is used to
determine the energy of the most energetic of...
In twentieth century America, women continue the age-old struggle for recognition
as whole, intelligent individuals, not just an "other," less hearty, less deserving
or less capable being than man. Sarah Grimke spoke of the inequalities over 150 years
ago during the abolitionist movement when she compiled her major arguments into...
Hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae Annand, is a destructive introduced pest of hemlock trees in eastern North America, and management has focused on the use of natural enemies through classical biological control. Two species of chamaemyiid flies, Leucopis argenticollis Zetterstedt and Leucopis atrifacies (Aldrich) have been collected previously from western...
The purpose of this study is to examine how autobiography functions as image restoration for a political candidate through the analysis of Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life. In particular, the study will identify and evaluate specific restoration strategies implemented by Palin in order to repair her image...
The promotion of democracy abroad has become a critical national security objective for the United States. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly independent states have received millions in aid to facilitate their transition to democracy. A significant portion of this funding has been administered by the United States...
Since the 1980s, NGOs have created a necessary niche for themselves within developing nations addressing poverty “traps” such as: lack of infrastructure, corruption, environmental degradation, conflict, disease, educational paucity, and gender inequality. Due to increasing issues of dependency and failed development projects resulting from a top-down, organizational structure, international nongovernmental...
Not many people in Russia have been able to successfully create an opposition movement under the presidency of Vladimir Putin. Opposition is already hard in any country, but things are especially difficult in Russia. Putin has made protest regulations, stifled the independent media, and excessively utilized selective rule by law....
MSME development has emerged at the forefront of economic policy, with the majority of policy mechanisms aimed at creating the regulatory and institutional environments, which have historically proven to augment entrepreneurial activity. In the case of Europe a large portion of entrepreneurial policy resides within the European Community framework, however...
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many newly independent nations have suffered internal instability as a result of ethnically based regional independence initiatives. This paper seeks to determine the effect historical legacies have on the formation of ethnic identities and the shaping of secessionist movements, using the...
Scholars posit that the successful consolidation of post-communist Central and Eastern European democracies can be linked to their subsequent accession to the European Union (EU). This led observers to assume that the continued democratization of Hungarian society was assured due to their integration into EU institutions. However, since the 2010...
Many economic development methods over the years have tried to solve the problem of poverty with varied success. Microenterprise development is a method that works with the poor to create small self-run businesses to increase their income, and therefore bring more freedom from disease illiteracy and discrimination. Within microenterprise development...
The case of Mongolia’s democratization remains unexplained by the various theories of democratization and democratic consolidation. The purpose of this thesis is to consider the unique case of Mongolian democratization, how well this case is described by various theories of democratization and reach both a description of how Mongolia’s democratization...
In the past decade, scholars have increasingly turned to quantitative analysis to understand the complex interplay of factors driving intrastate conflict. International agencies, nonprofits and governments have maintained that food insecurity is a significant driver of violent conflict. This paper tests this popular assumption with a model drawn from Azar’s...
A growing concern among the international community is that civil war has become the most common form of armed conflict worldwide. To prevent further bloodshed, more research is urgently needed to understand the causes of conflict and most successful strategies for peace. The bargaining theory of war proposes that former...
The purpose of this essay is to explore the dynamics of social movements, and better understand why some populations succeed when others fail. This topic was motivated by travels across the United States and Europe. In these journeys, minority groups and their unequal treatment by society were a constant feature,...
By conducting a comparative case study of Tunisia and Jordan this essay seeks to add to the Arab Spring literature addressing why outcomes varied so significantly among countries in the region, especially given seemingly comparable demographic, socio-economic and political environments in the region as a whole. However, in contrast to...
Far from the decimated state it was during the 1990s, Russia has risen to become a key player in many international events, often in opposition to the West. In particular, President Putin and his allies have invested heavily in increasing both Russia’s soft power, or its attractiveness to other countries,...
In many scientific settings, investigators are interested in the effect of a new treatment. To have a point of comparison data is collected from patients before treatment groups are assigned. When seeking to test the presence of a significant treatment effect it may be unclear how baseline measurements should be...
In Part I the environment of the coastal dunes of Oregon and Washington is analyzed. Most of the substratum is a narrow foreland or terrace, in part submerged, that borders the mountain front. Temperature is relatively low in summer and rarely reaches the freezing point in winter. Winter precipitation is...
The spatial distribution and abundance patterns of benthic infauna result from interactions with a host of environmental variables including sediment characteristics (percent silt-clay, grain size, total organic carbon), depth, temperature, and dissolved oxygen. This thesis focuses on the association of bivalve assemblages and species with potentially influential environmental variables along...
This project blends personal narrative with scholarly work to recognize the interplay between these genre categorizations and to affirm the academic value of lived experience. Through this method, I play in the intersections of trans pedagogies, queer pedagogies, and pedagogies of love and care. By recounting how I blended these...
A better understanding of the distribution and spawning behavior of Crangon shrimp and their relationship with their predators, including the green sturgeon, Acipenser medirostris, is an important step toward the larger goal to understand food webs of the nearshore continental shelf of the northeastern Pacific. Here, I examined how the...
Sexual and gender minority (SGM) samples report elevated rates of substance use and substance use disorder compared to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts across a wide variety of substances (Connolly & Gilchrist, 2020; Krueger et al., 2020; Rice et al., 2019), in part due to the experience of minority stress....
Seagrass ecosystems are considered some of the most productive coastal habitats in the world. One such seagrass within estuaries of the Pacific Northwest, Zostera marina (eelgrass), is recognized to be an ecosystem engineering species that provides many important ecosystem functions and services. In 2010, construction of the National Oceanic and...
A Confederate soldier turned cowboy, fresh off the front lines of the Civil War, Cain Bradshaw is a hard man who keeps to himself, content to work the cattle train and bury himself in the oblivion offered by the wilds of the scarcely tamed West. But when dumb chance and...
In 2019, a multi-cohort population of the typically estuarine burrowing shrimp Neotrypaea sp., was discovered approximately 7 miles offshore of Newport, Oregon. Morphological analysis of the offshore population, microbial sediment sequencing, and species distribution modeling was conducted with this new offshore population. In order to identify Neotrypaea sp. to the...
The commercial Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) fishery is Oregon’s largest trap-based fishery. Each year, crab vessels discard millions of pounds of bait, including squid, razor clams, and sardines, into the near-coastal ocean. Although the fishery season typically runs from December 1st through August 14th, most landings occur within the first...
Agent-based models (ABM) are widely used in network data analysis, and due to their simple structures and sophisticated outcomes, they serve as good tools in understanding the dynamics in networks. In this thesis, we develop an agent-based dynamic network model, and show that it can replicate the expected degree distribution...
Macroinvertebrates constitute the backbone of megafaunal communities in benthic ecosystems around the globe. Many macroinvertebrates have vital roles in benthic ecosystems, ranging from enhancing habitat complexity to providing staple food sources for other organisms. Regardless of how familiar macroinvertebrates are to the general public, very few studies have attempted to...
Propose a sampling plan to determine Hg contamination in the Nanay river basin.
The sampling plan is for a feasibility pilot, to investigate whether it is possible to safely collect samples for Hg analyses. Future studies will build on these initial results.
For hundreds of years, coastal and marine ecosystems have experienced increasing threats due to the cumulative effects of increasing population growth and dependence on these ecosystems. Thus, there has been increased enthusiasm to mitigate the negative effects of human actions through the use of cleaner sources of energy, like marine...
Sound is a crucial aspect of the underwater environment for fishes – various species use sound to communicate, identify predators, navigate, and many other activities needed for survival in their habitat. Disruptions and disturbances in the natural soundscape can have important impacts on all these activities and are likely to...
The mouth of the Columbia River (MCR) is an intersection of more than a river and ocean, but also multiple economically valuable activities including dredging to maintain a deep draft shipping channel and an active Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister) fishery. More than three million cubic meters of sediment are annually...
College is a vital time to address both emotional and physical health, especially among at-risk populations such as sexual and gender minority college students. However, it has not always been clear whether health services on college campuses are actually reaching these students. The current study aimed to determine if sexual...
This study is a preassessment of the ecological status of habitats and species potentially affected by wave energy device installation, focusing on five flatfish species. Butter sole (Isopsetta isolepis), English sole (Parophrys vetulus), Sand sole (Psettichthys melanostictus), Pacific sanddab (Citharichthys sordidus), and Speckled sanddab (Citharichthys stigmaeus) were collected bimonthly from...
This study examined the effect of exposure to fat positive exercise images as well as stereotypical fat imagery and stereotypical thin exercise images on participants’ self-reported weight bias and body image. The study hypothesized that participants exposed to fat positive imagery would exhibit less social distance, fat phobia, and internalized...
For the west coast of North America, from northern California to southern Washington, a habitat suitability prediction framework was developed to support wave energy device siting. Concern that wave energy devices may impact the seafloor and benthos has renewed research interest in the distribution of marine benthic invertebrates and factors...
Humans are remarkably efficient in learning by interacting with other people and observing their behavior. Children learn by watching their parents’ actions and mimic their behavior. When they are not sure about their parents demonstration, they communicate with them, ask questions, and learn from their feedback. On the other hand,...
The Sandinistas embarked on a unique and controversial path of democratization between 1979 and 1990 that focused first on expanding human development due to Nicaragua's historical underdevelopment before holding elections. This differs widely from methods advocated still today that emphasize expanding civil and political liberties and holding elections. The purpose...
Sedimentary records from the North Atlantic, instrumental in the development of modern paleo-geomagnetic concepts, show a highly variable field even during times of constant polarity. Yet, our understanding of how the magnetization is acquired in the sediments is poorly understood. Primary magnetizations preserved in deep-sea sediments are known to be...
Described as one of the most destructive pathogens of agricultural crops and forest trees, Phytophthora is a genus of microorganisms containing over 100 known species. Phytophthora alni has caused collar and root disease in alders throughout Europe and a form of the species has recently been isolated in North America....
Law enforcement in Indian Country has been characterized as a “maze of injustice”—one in which offenders too easily escape and victims are too easily lost (Amnesty International, 2007). Tribal, state, and federal governments have recently sought to amend this through the passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA)...
This thesis investigates the effect of participating in political activism on mental health. Participants (N = 187, 72% female, N = 135, 77% female) from an Oregon university were randomly assigned to one of three or four conditions (depending on the study) in which they participated in activism related to...
Skeletal muscles provide several functions, including, yet not limited to, voluntary body movement and locomotion, posture and body position, and soft tissue support. Skeletal muscles also play a role in metabolism, requiring energy to facilitate contraction. Each skeletal muscle serves a different purpose despite seeming to perform the same task....
Previous research has shown that women are increasingly sexualized in a variety of media contexts. I conducted a content analysis of film trailers from 2018 and 2019 to examine the relationship between the sexualization and objectification of female-presenting characters to the popularity of the film and its trailer. A random...
Diverse scientific fields collect multiple time series data to investigate the dynamical behavior of complex systems: atmospheric and climate science, geophysics, neuroscience, epidemiology, ecology, and environmental science. Identifying patterns of mutual dependence among such data generates valuable knowledge that can be applied either for inferential or forecasting purposes. Vector autoregressive...
Anomaly detection is the task of identifying observations (points) that differ from the majority of other points, which requires some measure of difference, or distance. Many anomaly detection methods rely on “implicit distance” measures: rather than directly calculating an explicitly defined distance, these approaches quantify a point’s “abnormality” by examining...
Due to recent advances in computer technology, the cost of collecting and storing data has dropped drastically. This makes it feasible to collect large amounts of information for each data point. This increasing trend in feature dimensionality justifies the need for research on variable selection. Random forest (RF) has demonstrated...
Although the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is a global crop, few growing regions rival the high yields of the Columbia Basin of Eastern Oregon and Washington. Two research projects were conducted in Hermiston, OR to contribute to best management practices for the region. The first project evaluated the efficacy of...
Understanding the mechanisms regulating mitochondrial respiratory function and adaptations to metabolic challenges, such as exercise and high dietary fat, is necessary to promote skeletal muscle health and attenuate metabolic disease. Autophagy is a constitutively active degradation pathway that promotes mitochondrial turnover and is suppressed by insulin and activated by exercise....
Ocean observing groups are currently making efforts to work with well-defined end-user groups, like boaters and fishermen, to provide meaningful and effective real-time data (RTD) products and visualizations. However, providing meaningful data products for undefined groups such as the general public is not straightforward. In Oregon, several industry, science, and...
Hydrologic processes within mineral flat wetlands, along with their
connections to groundwater and downstream surface water in lowland agricultural
catchments are poorly understood, particularly under different land uses. In the three
field studies included in this thesis, we examined infiltration, wetland hydroperiod,
groundwater recharge dynamics, surface runoff generation, and water...
Feline upper respiratory tract disease (FURTD) is a complex syndrome that affects domestic cats, with clinical signs including general malaise, ocular and nasal discharge, and oral pathology. Our study compared the presence or absence of five common FURTD pathogens and routine blood parameters between 18 participating cats. Owners tended to...
Commercial fishing research often focuses on ecological (gear, stock assessment, traceability) or economic factors. Truly understanding the social-ecological system requires considering the entire "human dimension" and this includes the social, cultural, and legal/policy aspects as well. An understudied yet important factor is women's contribution to fishing at the family and...
Proteins are the metabolic machines of the cell and as such, the study of proteins could illuminate the dominant biological activities that are occurring within cells and reveal how an organism interacts with its environment. Here, we used proteomic techniques to study the abundant marine bacterium SAR11 both as an...
Metabolic improvements and changes in gene expression were measured in mice fed polyphenol-rich extracts derived from apples and sweet cherries, and the common phytochemicals, quercetin and ellagic acid. Polyphenol-rich extracts were produced by solid phase extraction and column chromatography. Extracts and purified compounds were mixed into a high-fat (HF, 60%...
Heavy timber framing relies primarily on bracing to withstand lateral loads due to earthquakes and wind events. Bracing configurations in heavy timber framed buildings vary widely and include cross bracing, knee bracing, and other geometries. Many heavy timber frames constructed during colonial American times are still standing, exceeding the expected...
This thesis explores the intricate issues surrounding migration at the U.S.-Mexico border, offering diverse perspectives and insights into its drivers, consequences, and ethical dimensions. Through three comprehensive papers, this research offers a nuanced analysis of the complex dynamics influencing the migration crisis. The first examines the historical and theoretical factors...
Successful fire exclusion in the 20th century has created severe fire problems across the West. Not every forest is at risk of
uncharacteristically severe wildfire, but drier forests are in need of active management to mitigate fire hazard. We summarize a
set of simple principles important to address in fuel...
Successful fire exclusion in the 20th century has created severe fire problems across the West. Not every forest is at risk of
uncharacteristically severe wildfire, but drier forests are in need of active management to mitigate fire hazard. We summarize a
set of simple principles important to address in fuel...
This study examines the association of household characteristics with forest product consumption and other benefits derived from community forest in Nepal. The analysis is based on random sample data of 80 households from a Community Forest User Groups of Baghmara Community Forestry (BCF) in Nepal. Using an OLS regression to...
This study investigates methods of multivariate regression analysis and their applications to biological data. It provides an overview of methods of reduced rank regression and sparse multivariate regression, including their motivations, methods, and applications. It also implements a form of sparse regression known as Regularized Multivariate Regression for Identifying Master...
Effective management of urban forests is vital to society due to the numerous ecological, economic, and social benefits they provide. In many cities, management efforts are commonly supported by citizen advisory groups, which are often generically referred to as “tree boards” within the urban forestry context. Very little is known...
The scale of pest and disease dispersal is often larger than the scale of individual farms. Therefore, an individual grower’s response to pests and diseases can affect and is affected by their surrounding growing region. Individual growers are also not isolated, and engage in various forms of information gathering, sharing,...
Sexual selection can influence the mating system of an organism through multiple mechanisms. These mechanisms result in variation in reproductive success among individuals, and include scramble competition, endurance rivalries, contests, mate choice and cryptic choice, and sperm competition. Understanding the mating system of a species requires the identification of which...
The following thesis consists of four sections: a general introduction, two manuscripts, a general conclusion, and an overall bibliography. The two manuscripts report on: (1) discussing the prospects of developing a perennial malting barley and potential alternative sustainable crop management practices and (2) further exploring the contributions of barley variety...
Since 1980, the prevalence of obesity among U.S. adults has more than doubled, accompanied by increases in chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes. This high prevalence and associated disease burden continues to be a threat to public health. Despite years of efforts to stem the tide of obesity, successful...
Enumerative combinatorics is an area of mathematics that is both highly accessible for students and widely applicable to other sciences and areas of mathematics (Kapur, 1970; Lockwood, Wasserman, & Tillema, 2020). One important class of problems in combinatorics is combinatorial proofs of binomial identities, which is a type of proof...
Ammonia (NH₃) volatilization and loss from nitrogen (N) fertilizer in agriculture negatively impacts crops, farm profitability, human health and surrounding ecosystems where it is deposited. A significant source of NH₃ volatilization occurs from surface application of urea on sandy soils with low pH buffering capacity such as those in the...
In the US, a disease is classified as rare if it affects less than 200,000 individuals a year. Despite considerable similarities, individuals with rare diseases (RDs) report worse life quality and satisfaction with life (SWL) than those with common chronic conditions. One potential avenue to increase SWL is through improving...
In the current global economy, higher education is critical for gaining and keeping living-wage jobs. The need for a college-educated labor force has increased interest among youth in pursuing higher education (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). Despite these demands, the United States has struggled to effectively increase college completion...
Randomized trials are the gold standard for the clinical assessment of a new treatment
compared to a placebo or standard of care. Often in clinical trials, patients are
accrued sequentially rather than all at once. Thus, the data from such a trial becomes
available sequentially to the researcher. Monitoring and...
Changes in the global climate and forest management practices have given rise to increasing numbers and severity of wildfires. More than five million acres burned in the United States in 2017, while in Canada 7.4 million acres burned. In particular, an increasing amount of dead woody biomass is a key...
Bayesian optimization (BO) aims to optimize costly-to-evaluate functions by running a limited number of experiments that each evaluates the function at a selected input. Typical BO formulations assume that experiments are selected sequentially, or in fixed batches. Moreover, these experiments can be executed immediately upon request and have the same...
This paper models the supply curve of carbon sequestration on Pacific Northwest rangelands. Rangeland managers have the ability to sequester carbon in agricultural soils by implementing alternative management practices on their farms. Their low adoption rate in practice suggests a high opportunity cost associated with their implementation. To increase their...
Mitigating for increased human impact to the seafloor associated with resource extraction activities and renewable energy development can benefit from an understanding of the distribution of sensitive marine benthic species. Habitat suitability predictive modeling is a cost effective statistical tool to infer species distribution patterns from constrained sampling locations. However,...
Myxobolus cerebralis, a myxozoan parasite of salmonids, is the causative agent of whirling disease. The parasite is considered widespread throughout northeastern Oregon in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha River basins where threatened and endangered salmonid populations exist. The work presented in this thesis comprises several studies that assess the effects...