This study defines the information gathering and communication and response
needed for safety at highway-rail crossings. It examines technologies for low-cost,
high-safety treatments for low volume highway crossings of higher speed (130-200 kph) rail. Crossing closure and consolidation is a necessary first step. Existing
train control and crossing safety systems...
In the 1990s the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service established regulations to limit the amount of Chinook and chum salmon taken as bycatch in Bering Sea trawl fisheries. The Bering Sea pollock fishery has in recent years (2002-2005) caught a significant number of sockeye...
Economists and biologists have recognized that spatial and temporal area-closures may provide an effective means of managing the impact that fisheries have on one another and upon threatened species. To date, however, little work has been done to estimate the economic impact of protected areas on commercial fishing. One significant...
The purpose of this study was to provide the USDA-Forest Service,
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and other agencies or industries
that may deal with temporary and intermittent use roads with
the necessary background information for the identification, economic
evaluation, and selection of the alternate surfacing systems and to
determine...
This thesis presents the procedure adopted to develop the priority rating system for highway safety improvements. Safety hazards are classified into four categories:
(1) Railroad crossings,
(2) Intersections,
(3) Geometric-Related Hazards, and
(4) Roadside Hazards.
For each category of hazards, relationships are developed to obtain a hazard index and expected...
The research examines the effect of restricted head and neck movement on
driving performance as measured by decision time at T-intersections. The traffic
safety and human factors literature was reviewed, and very little was found
concerning drivers with physical limitations. T-intersections were selected for
study because most accidents involving drivers...
Two interesting challenges have been created in the traditional transportation planning process through recent adoption of more interactive roles by Federal, State and local transportation agencies and of those representing the communities being impacted by proposed transportation projects. First, the decision-making groups that formerly included solely transportation and related professionals...
Many hazardous locations exist on our local and street highway
systems. Such hazards contribute to the frequency and severity of
traffic accidents. The elimination and mitigation of the hazards
reduces accident frequency and severity, as measured by the number of
fatalities, injuries and property damage resulting from the accidents.
The...
Driving simulation is widely accepted as a safe, effective, and economical alternative for investigating driver behavior in a variety of contexts. However, in order to apply simulator-based research results to real-world settings, the performance measures acquired through simulated driving experiments must first be validated. This research was aimed at validating...
This dissertation describes the development of a mechanistic
overlay design procedure. The mechanistic analysis represents a new
trend in both new pavement and overlay design. The greatest advantage
of the mechanistic pavement analysis is that it considers the
fundamental characteristics of materials to be used, is capable of
considering changes...
With the passage of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) it has become a civil
rights violation to deny access to persons with disabilities to public transportation. The
ADA requires transit agencies to provide accessible buses or equivalent services to
persons with mobility, sensory or cognitive impairments. This study examines...
This study involved the determination of the structural layer properties of
aggregate and asphalt surfaced pavements for use in the evaluation of pavement load
carrying capacity and the seasonal effects of moisture. This was achieved by the use
of Nondestructive Testing Methods (NDT) and backcalculation techniques. Pavement
surface deflection measurements...
The Horsetail Creek (HC) bridge is an example of an Oregon bridge that was classified as structurally deficient and was not designed to withstand earthquake (EQ) excitations. A fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) rehabilitation was performed on the HC bridge to increase flexural and shear capacities for traffic loads. However, a seismic...
The thesis is a case study of two traditional family farms that were settled in
Oregon in 1850 and 1915. The study embraces the theory that material culture
reflects customs and values. The material culture indicators within the study are the
architectural structures of the Oregon farms. The study filters...
The implementation of concurrent engineering into many large
companies has greatly improved their product development processes.
These companies have seen significant gains in quality and customer
satisfaction with reduced product costs, defects, and time-to-market
(Lake, 1992). Many large companies have successfully employed this
relatively new product development philosophy. However, smaller...
Although the timber industry was the major economic force in the lives of several generations of Oregon families, very little archaeological investigation has been done on the dozens of abandoned logging camps that are scattered throughout the forests of the Pacific Northwest. This project focuses on Camp 1, a 1920s...
Natural landscapes around the world have experienced serious loss and degradation, which negatively impacts ecosystem service provision by these landscapes. As a result, there have been serious investments to restore natural capital. However, restoration faces complex trade-offs, such as that between restoration quality, or how closely the restored landscapes resembles...
Statement of the Problem:
The focal point of student activity centers around a student's
residential affiliation. Therefore, a student's residence should be
considered as a vital area for continued research. There have been
a number of studies directly related to a student population, some
focusing on activities and some on...
This thesis describes the archaeological site content and integrity of the Copeland site (35BE90) in Corvallis, Oregon. The Copeland site is owned by the Benton County Historical Society and is the future home of the Benton County Historical Museum. In 2001, an Oregon State University archaeological field school was conducted...
Twelve plots at six sites in southwestern Oregon were studied to determine the degree to which various soil characteristics are related to the occurrence and growth of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana and Thuja plicata. Soil profiles and vegetation were described in each plot, and measurements were made of insolation, soil and litter...
This paper describes the development of structural layer coefficients
for open graded asphalt emulsion surfacing layers which can be used with
the AASHO pavement design method, as modified by the U. S. Forest Service,
Region 6.
A field survey conducted to document the history, performance and
material characteristics of in-service...
At a time when environmental conditions are rapidly changing, understanding how thermal extremes impact wildlife is imperative to fully understanding the consequences of climate change in natural ecosystems. While many organisms are currently impacted by rapidly warming and more erratic environmental conditions, identifying and investigating model species whose life histories...
In today's world, desktop computers have become such an integral part of
our lives that it is practically impossible to imagine anything being done without the
aid of computers. As the world becomes more and more fast paced and users feel a
need to have computers on the go, desktop...
Tables are presented that summarize 108 published articles on forest growth and yield in the Pacific Northwest. Each table describes the form of the information presented, the species to which the information is applicable, the data sources used to develop the information, the data needed to predict growth and yield,...
An intersection, due to its vehicle and pedestrian conflict movements, experiences complex traffic situations that might contribute to crashes. In the city of Corvallis, OR, historically more than 80% of the total crashes have occurred within an intersection or have been designated as intersection-related. It is important to develop a...
Rubber-modified asphalt pavements have been used in Sweden and the United States since the 1970's. In these applications ground recycled tire particles (0.25 inch minus) are added to a gap-graded aggregate and then mixed with hot asphalt cement. The benefits of adding rubber to the mix include increased skid resistance...
The emerging field of regenerative medicine is mainly approached by two different aspects. First is the use of stem cell based models to generate a suite of differentiated cells for therapeutic applications and the alternative approach is to utilize the non-mammalian models that have the inherent capacity to regenerate their...
The challenges faced by manufacturing companies have forced them to become more efficient. Cellular manufacturing is a concept that has been accepted as a technique for increasing manufacturing productivity in batch type production by efficient grouping of parts (jobs) with some similarities in processing operations into groups and sequentially matching...
The production of high value non-conventional products, such as long utility poles; or the production of low value bulky products, such as chips or grindings; provide opportunities for forest owners to increase value from their forests. The transport of these products requires the use of specialized trucks and trailers. However,...
The West Coast salmon fishery presents several complexities that have received little attention in the fisheries economics literature. Two of those complexities are reviewed and analyzed in this dissertation. The first, salmon fishermen participate in alternative fisheries within a season demonstrating a complex switching behavior between different species. Second, the...
A fully-saturated poroelastic medium is confined by the sides of a cylinder, and the regions below and above the medium are filled with fluid at respective constant pressures. The filtration flow of fluid through the poroelastic medium and the small deformations of the medium are described by a quasi-static Biot...
This thesis contains three parts addressing the asymptotic analysis of fluid flow through fully saturated porous medium in the presence of an adjacent thin channel.
In the first part the problem is modeled by Darcy's law in both the porous medium and in the channel. The permeability in the channel...
Drunk driving continues to be a national, state, and
local problem in spite of recent changes in laws governing
drinking and driving. Driving under the influence of
intoxicants (DDII) has been judged to be responsible for
approximately one-half of all traffic related deaths
nationally, killing 25,000 Americans and injuring 700,000...
This dissertation addresses the "multi-machine carryover sequence
dependent group-scheduling problem with anticipatory setups," which arises in
the printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing. Typically, in PCB manufacturing
different board types requiring similar components are grouped together to
reduce setup times and increase throughput. The challenge is to determine the
sequence of...
This research employed both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to
explore the impact of mobile wireless technology (MWT) in higher education classrooms.
The methodology was developed using systems engineering concepts. A methodology to
evaluate and compare the cost, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility of different MWT
configurations was also developed. Five outcomes...
Starting in the 1960's, the demand for recreational properties nationwide experienced a great surge. [Reilly, 1973; David, 1969; Hoover, n.d.; ASPO, 1976]
A number of studies have been done of the impact of recreational subdivisions on local taxes. [Tillson, et. al. 1972; Thompson and Myrick, 1975; LeJeune, 1972; Moss and...
West Nile Virus (WNV), a vector-borne disease continues to be a serious threat to public health in the United States, particularly in the Southwest region. While all the states in the U.S. experienced a decreasing trend of WNV disease in 2010, the state of Arizona experienced a sharp increase from...
Advancing the understanding of natural resource management is an important step in mitigating the effects of human activity on the environment, and ensuring efficient outcomes for many sectors of the economy. As humanity’s role in the natural world becomes better understood, the importance of interdisciplinary modeling has grown in leaps...
Plant-parasitic nematodes cause more than US $100 billion in annual agriculture loss worldwide. Thorough knowledge of their genetic diversity, and interactions with endosymbionts and environment have the potential to provide valuable insights into the basic biology of these animals, and assist future efforts aimed at management of these plant parasites....
The purpose of this research, expressed in two coequal parts,
was: to establish a forecast of developments and an articulation of
policy options vis-a-vis postsecondary student consumerism; and to
determine if interest groups of experts differed significantly in
their evaluations of the aforementioned developments and policy
options.
The Delphi technique...
Authors listed on this Accepted Manuscript vary slightly from those listed on the Version of Record. Harold L. Gibson is an additional author on the published version.
The literature related to valuing the protection of threatened and endangered marine species using stated preference non-market valuation methods is summarized and examined. This includes an evaluation of the suitability of existing threatened, endangered, and rare marine species values as inputs for the analysis of marine and coastal policies, and...