Wildfire management networks allow for collaborative intervention in mitigating the ever-present risk of major wildfire events. This thesis consists of two manuscripts that explore the topology and characteristics of wildfire management networks and their ability to influence wildfire severity in social-ecological systems. The first manuscript focuses on the characteristics of...
Like many areas around the globe experiencing ever-growing demand for diminishing natural resources, the south-central region of Texas is facing a wicked problem in water resource planning and sustainability. This Region includes San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the U.S. With a projected population increase over one million residents...
Cryptographic obfuscation is a powerful tool that makes programs “unintelligible” yet still runnable. It essentially gives programs the ability to keep secrets. The practical applications of obfuscation range from keeping secrets in banking applications to preventing software theft to providing secure messaging applications. The cryptographic applications of obfuscation are also...
Renewable energy is on the rise in the U.S. Additional efforts will be required to integrate intermittent and decentralized sources of energy into the electrical grid. Given that storing large amounts of electricity is not yet available at a reasonable cost, electric grid operators must match supply and demand at...
The Himalayan mountain range is one of the world’s largest sources of fresh water, and Nepal, situated at the foothills of the Himalayas, is endowed with ample water resources. In spite of this water abundance, drinking water supply in many parts of the country is inadequate, particularly in the capital,...
The ever-increasing environmental degradation in China is leading people to pay more attention to environmental protection. Although Chinese government has made progress in dealing with environmental problems, the environment still gets worse. Thus, ordinary people began to take part in environmental issues, and make contributions to environmental protection. With increased...
Wildfires in the modern era have grown ever more destructive and dangerous following decades of suppression-only policies and climate change. Because of this, the wildfire incident management teams (IMTs) and their public information officers (PIOs) that manage these fires have taken on a more visible and important role, especially in...
Increasing public awareness that the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest is capable of great earthquakes (magnitude 9 and greater) motivates the Cascadia Initiative, an ambitious onshore/offshore seismic and geodetic experiment that takes advantage of an amphibious array to study questions ranging from megathrust earthquakes, to volcanic arc structure,...
Although dam construction has been an integral tool in development initiatives for nearly a century, dams can have significant negative impacts on local residents, particularly those who are permanently displaced from their homes and must be resettled elsewhere. Dams have unique impacts on indigenous peoples. As a result, many dam...
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...
Seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum Sw.) is an important warm-season perennial turfgrass, known for its tolerance to salinity. Turfgrass is used for homes, municipalities, sod farms, resorts, and sports fields. Seashore paspalum has historically been planted in sub-tropical and tropical climates because of its heat tolerance. Seashore paspalum could become an...
On February 9th, 2014 Michael Sam stated in an interview with ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that he is gay. Since he was drafted, Sam will become the first ever openly gay player in NFL history. The following study aims to explore ESPN's coverage of Michael Sam, with a goal of...
More women compete in sports currently than ever before. However, the historical tensions which relate to their participation--as athletes and as females--remain. Mixed martial arts (MMA) has proven to be the most visible introduction of females into sports that have traditionally been considered exclusively for men. Gina Carano and Cristiane...
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Mark J. Porrovecchio
More women compete in sports currently than ever before. However, the
A public key cryptosystem allows two or more parties to securely communicate
over an insecure channel without establishing a physically secure channel for key
exchange. The RSA cryptosystem is the most popular public key cryptosystem ever
invented. It is based on the difficulty of factoring large composite numbers. Once the...
We are witness to an ever tighter coupling between natural hazard-related disasters ("disasters") and violent social conflict ("conflict"). Previous research has established that disaster has the propensity to lead to conflict, and conflict, in turn, has been found to contribute to disaster vulnerabilities. The field of disaster diplomacy, by contrast,...
Private matching (PM) is a key cryptographic primitive in secure computation that allows several parties to jointly compute some functions depending on their private inputs. Indeed, this primitive has many practical applications. For instance, in online advertising, two companies may wish to find their common customers for a joint marketing...
Pets are reshaping human lifestyles in countries around the world. More people than ever include pets as part of their family. Organizations including the Society for Companion Animal Studies (SCAS) and the Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) have conducted and sponsored a wealth of research into human-companion animal interactions...
Ever-increasing size, complexity and operation costs in modern
power systems have stimulated the intensive study of an optimal
Load Shedding and Generator Rescheduling (LSGR) strategy in the
sense of a secure and economic system operation.
The conventional approach to LSGR has been based on the application of LP (Linear Programming)...
Multiparadigm programming languages are a recent development in the realm of programming languages. A multiparadigm programming language allows the use of multiple, differing programming paradigms without departing from a single, unified linguistic framework. Multiparadigm programming languages are claimed to have benefits to both pedagogy and complex application creation. The beneficial...
I investigated the relationship between harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) behavior and lack of recovery from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. First, I evaluated the hypothesis that harlequin ducks in winter have little flexibility to increase foraging time in response to disturbance because they are constrained...
Among Oregon's major tourist attractions is the State's beautiful and impressive coastal
scenery. Sandy beaches, usually backed by sea-cliffs or dune fields, are regularly
disrupted either by the mouths of shallow bays and estuaries, or by massive rocky
headlands extending hundreds of meters into the Pacific Ocean. Storm-generated waves,
tides,...
Micro air vehicles (MAV's) and small unmanned aerial vehicles (SUAV) are remotely piloted or autonomous aircraft with a take-off mass range between 50 g and few kilograms. These vehicles, as well as natural fliers such as bats and insects, utilize a variety of elastic wing structures including thin membranes. Over...
The global demand for food is expected to double by 2050, presenting a need that is complicated by the many interrelated of pressures on the world’s natural resources from climate change, growing urban populations, and increasing development. As one of the fastest growing food production sectors, aquaculture is poised to...
Diversity literary awards and other sources were used to create a list of high-quality titles written by and about underrepresented groups. This list was used to assess the diversity and inclusiveness of the library collections of a land-grant university. Gaps in the collection and acquisition processes were identified and will...
With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in every sphere of life in today's day and age, it has become increasingly important for non-AI experts to be able to comprehend the underlying logic of how AI systems work, assess them and find faults in these systems, particularly when they are...
Congress created the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) in 2009 with the passage of the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 Title IV). The purpose of the CFLRP legislation is to implement forest restoration work on national forest lands through a competitive grant program....
Assessing AI systems is difficult. Humans rely on AI systems in increasing ways, both visible and invisible, meaning a variety of stakeholders need a variety of assessment tools (e.g., a professional auditor, a developer, and an end user all have different needs). We posit that it is possible to provide...
This is a bibliography of doctoral dissertations and masters' theses in forestry and related topics issued during the period from July 1981 through June 1990. The colleges and universities included are all accredited by the Society of American Foresters. The actual listings were supplied by the individual institutions. Topics covered...
The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management propose to adopt coordinated ecosystem management direction for the lands they administer within the range of the northern spotted owl. This Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SETS) presents as alternatives the options, with slight modifications, developed by the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment...