The World Health Organization (WHO) defines female genital cutting (FGC) as “all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons” (WHO, 2010). This practice has existed in Africa for thousands of years, but over the...
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,...
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...
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.
Isolated approaches at signalized intersections with posted speed limits of 45 mph or greater generally experience large numbers of rear-end and angle collisions. A combination of less attentive drivers, high operating speeds, and less than ideal intersection characteristics can result in crash frequencies well above expected rates. A number of...
Rice (Oryza sativa) is a common crop found in various regions worldwide where it is considered a staple food. Though widespread, O. sativa plants' growth, development, and yield are affected by environmental/abiotic stresses including drought, salinity, flooding, cold, heat, etc. Particularly, salinity stress leads to dehydration, overwhelms potassium pumps, and...
In light of broadening racial/ethnic educational attainment gaps, growing diversity within young populations, and the increasingly critical relationship between higher education and outcomes in adulthood, understanding the factors that shape educational attainment is an especially important task for research. With this goal in mind, the current study examined how national...
Biogeochemical mechanisms employed by key organisms, or symbiotic associations of organisms, transform the function and structure of their environment through processes recognized as ecosystem engineering. This dissertation seeks to investigate organism-ecosystem interactions that serve globally significant ecological functions in marine systems and impact how systems respond to environmental change. Using...
Toughened ceramics, or bridging ceramics, are being developed in an attempt
to widen the application base of traditional ceramics, which are brittle and have low
resistance to crack extension. The crack growth resistance of these extrinsically
toughened ceramics has been shown to increase with crack length, and unlike
traditional ceramics,...
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....
Slow moving earthflows (0.1 15 m/yr.) may constrict valley
floors and directly impinge on stream channels. Earthflows that
move laterally into channels deliver organic and inorganic material
to the stream from the earthflow toe. If the amount and particle
size of this material is too large to be removed by...
Ceratomyxa shasta is a myxozoan parasite that infects salmonid fishes causing the disease ceratomyxosis that is characterized by severe hemorrhage and necrosis of the intestine and death of the fish host. Ceratomyxa shasta is endemic to the Pacific Northwestern United States and Canada, where epizootics are reported for both wild...
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...
Population trends and patterns in species distributions are the major currencies used to examine responses by biodiversity to changing environments. Effective conservation recommendations require that models of both distribution dynamics and population trends accurately reflect reality. However, identification of the appropriate temporal and spatial scales of animal response, and then...
Across the globe, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been established to protect biodiversity, sustain fisheries, and preserve cultural resources. However, there exist broad differences among MPAs with respect to their establishment stage and protective regulations, making it difficult to quantify how much ocean protection is actually occurring. This thesis utilizes...
The geologic processes at work in American Samoa have long been a point of scientific debate. Of its numerous volcanic formations, few breach sea level, leaving an enormous proportion of their mass unavailable to traditional observation. This study aims to describe the deep sea geomorphology of American Samoa through compilation,...
Stratigraphy and chronology are essential to sedimentological study of Earth system histories. And, stratigraphy and chronology are often challenging and interesting problems themselves. The Quaternary (2.588 Ma - present) experienced paleoenvironmental and paleo-geomagnetic variability well outside the range of the recent instrumental record, providing the opportunity to place recent observations...
A stochastic process is given by a family of random variables indexed by elements of a set. We have considered stochastic processes of three different types, each involving an associated martingale structure. Martingale is a sequence of random variables for which the conditional expectation at a certain time point given...