Focus is published by Oregon State University College of Forestry. Our goal is to keep Forestry alumni, friends, faculty, staff, and students informed about the College of Forestry and its many activities and programs.
Focus on Forestry is published by Oregon State University College of Forestry. Our goal is to keep Forestry alumni, friends, faculty, staff, and students informed about the College of Forestry and its many activities and programs.
In Oregon, the effects of climate change on agriculture are already being felt. In the Northwest, climate change impacts agricultural pest pressure, especially insects, whose life cycles are tied directly to weather and climate. The goal of this research was to record and analyze Oregon fruit and vegetable farmers’ relationships...
As we contemplate the future of forest landscapes under changing climate conditions and land-use demands, there is increasing value in studying historic forest conditions and how these landscapes have changed following past disturbances. Historic landscape paintings are a potential source of data on preindustrial forests with highly detailed, full-color depictions...
The objective of this dissertation is to enhance the monitoring of forest ecosystems through the utilization of remotely sensed data to address the exigencies posed by the Anthropocene. On a global scale, rising temperatures and fluctuating precipitation patterns have strained forests and produced shifts in natural disturbance regimes. Additionally, the...
Toxin production by cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) in freshwater systems has lasting ecological and human impacts. Nutrients, light availability, hydrology, and microbial community composition impact the frequency and intensity of toxic cyanoHABs. Climate change will exacerbate toxic cyanoHABs, making real time and predictive monitoring a vital tool for managing...
Over the last two centuries, Pilsner beer has become a symbol of Czech national identity. Originating in the Western Czech town of Plzeň, the unique color and flavor spread globally, with new styles further branching off the Central European stem. It is with great pride that the Czech people are...
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Tiah Edmunson-Morton, Committee Member, representing Oregon State University Special
Skeletal muscle mitochondria are highly plastic organelles, integral to whole-body health. High-fat diet (HFD) and exercise remodel the skeletal muscle mitochondria. Whereby, altered skeletal muscle mitochondrial function is linked to decreased skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity which can be reversed by exercise. However, the mechanisms that contribute to skeletal muscle remodeling...
The Bondwoman’s Narrative, the first novel written by an enslaved Black woman, borrows heavily from other texts and genres to investigate what freedom looks like in the context of slavery. Crafts rewrites characters, scenes, and plots, adapting them to her setting and placing herself as a heroine within them. Scholars...
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation drew public ire during the 1980s and 1990s when activist groups forced the declassification of 19,000 documents and discovered proof of accidental and intentional releases of radioactive materials into the environment. These releases had been kept from the public. Although many locals had for decades wondered...
Consistent with its charge under Oregon House Bill 3543, the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI) conducts a biennial assessment of the state of climate change science, including biological, physical, and social science, as it relates to Oregon and the likely effects of climate change on Oregon. This fifth Oregon...
This report, required by state law under HB3543, provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of science of climate change as it pertains to Oregon, covering the physical, biological, and social dimensions. The first chapter summarizes the current state of knowledge of physical changes in climate and hydrology, focusing on...
Microbial-induced corrosion of concrete (MICC) is a multi-stage deterioration process caused by microbial activity in wastewater infrastructure. MICC is a worldwide issue due to the reduced service life of the wastewater infrastructure and the economic impact associated with increased maintenance and reconstruction costs. This thesis explores two critical aspect of...
The focus of this thesis is to design, characterize, and apply novel computational methods and molecular systems to interrogate heterogeneous human gut microbiome-related phenomena. In Chapter 2, I design, implement, and characterize a method for embedding co-occurrence patterns derived from massive 16s amplicon datasets. I use this method to 1....
The diverse community of bacteria living within and on host organisms, known as the microbiome, has an important role in maintaining host health. Dysbiosis, known as a change in the healthy community of the microbiome, has been associated with a number of diseases across host organisms and body sites including...
Iterative algorithms are simple yet efficient in solving large-scale optimization problems in practice. With a surge in the amount of data in past decades, these methods have become increasingly important in many application areas including matrix/tensor recovery, deep learning, data mining, and reinforcement learning. To optimize or improve iterative algorithms,...
Breast cancer is the leading cancer in women with an estimated 13% of women in the United States developing a form of invasive breast cancer in her lifetime. The survival rate is estimated to be 85%, but the American Cancer Society estimates that early detection of breast cancer in the...
In computer science, learning abstract fundamental programming concepts requiring students to understand memory management can be very difficult and lead to misunderstandings that carry on into advanced topics. This is especially true in data structures with abstract data types. Understanding how novice students think and reason about data structures is...
Oregon strawberries are known for their high quality, intense flavor, sweetness, and rich red color. With optimal weather conditions, including rainy and mild seasons, Oregon has one of the best strawberry farming environments. Amongst the factors for a suitable strawberry farming environment, soil significantly influences strawberry growth and quality. The...
This study explores how multispecies social networks influence small farmers' perceptions of and responses to climate change across Oregon. Local food sovereignty and food system resilience depend on a robust local food system in which small farms play a critical role. To maintain their viability, small farmers must adapt to...
Kelps are large brown algae in the order Laminariales and are foundation species that form the basis of kelp forests. Present across a quarter of the world’s coastlines, kelp forests provide diverse services to coastal communities, as habitat for commercially and culturally important species, as a food source for humans...
Given the many significant roles that bacteria play in modern food manufacturing, it is crucial that we have a fundamental understanding of how bacterial communities assemble and behave in the food manufacturing environment. The focus of this dissertation was to investigate both the spatial and temporal distributions of microbial communities...
Beginning in 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic contributed to an increase in housing insecurity among college students. As awareness around homelessness has increased, so has research aimed at better understanding the causes of homelessness and housing insecurity among college students, as well as opportunities to better support economic access to higher...
Many large-scale data analysis applications involve data that can vary over both time and space. Often the primary goal of analyzing spatiotemporal data is identifying trends, movements, and sudden changes with respect to time, location, or both. This can include a variety of applications in economics (housing prices, unemployment, job...
Obesity is a complex multifactorial disease resulting from excessive energy intake compared to energy expenditure. The excess energy is mostly stored as fat in enlarged adipocytes, but some lipids may infiltrate other organs such as the liver to form ectopic fat. Adipose tissue and ectopic fat produce and secrete a...
France’s decision to test their nuclear weapons program in the Sahara in 1960 wholly reshaped how the Cold War infiltrated into West Africa. During a time of nation building, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah urged Ghana and Africa, more broadly, to break ties with colonial powers and rebuke further attempts of...
Explosively erupting volcanoes and megathrust earthquakes (Mw 8+ magnitude) occur at subduction zones and adjacent volcanic arcs. Volcanic eruptions are observed occurring close in time to megathrust earthquakes in the historical record from at least the 18th century CE to present in locations globally, including Japan in 1707 CE (Chesley...
In the years from 1954 to 1956 Agnes Eriksen filled three fashion sketchbooks that contained ⅛ scale patterns, fabric swatches, and styling notations for eighteen garments. I plan to recreate and sew together Agnes Eriksen’s fashion designs into a small snapshot of these three years. The 1950s is a particularly...
The European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is a diploid (2n = 2x = 22) tree crop important to the economy of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where 99% of hazelnut production in the United States is located. Corylus avellana exhibits sporophytic self-incompatibility (SSI), controlled by a single S-locus with at least 33...
This document contains a summary of changes in administrations and actions taken by the Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission in 1974, as well as an update for the status of various fisheries.
This document contains a summary of changes in administrations and actions taken by the commission, and reports of the status of sport fisheries for 1972, as well as an update for the status of various fisheries.
This document contains a summary of changes in administrations and actions taken by the commission, and reports of the status of sport fisheries for 1970. It also has a report on hooking mortalities in Pacific Salmon.
This document contains a summary of changes in administrations and actions taken by the commission for the Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission in 1969. It also has reports of the status of various sports fisheries for prior years.
The story of Leo Szilard has not been told in its full complexity. This is especially so of the role imagination played in Szilard’s worldview. Szilard, like many other scientists in the mid-twentieth century, worked on the Manhattan Project. Like these other wartime participants, the work and relationships formed during...
The goal of my dissertation was to explore how scale influences stream restoration prioritization strategies for an anadromous species and identify influential uncertainties that exist at different scales. My objectives were to (1) produce a comprehensive review of the Chinook salmon management challenges in California’s Central Valley and identify the...
The Champoeg townsite first developed due to its ideal settlement and trade location within the Willamette Valley, becoming the ‘legal birthplace of Oregon’ in 1843. However, by 1860 Champoeg’s significance had begun to decline, and in December of 1861 a devastating flood wiped out the townsite. Archaeological excavations took place...
This dissertation aims to elicit how a neo-colonial context shapes maternal and infant heath (MIH) outcomes by describing how they are socially, politically, historically, and culturally produced. Using a multi-level critical biocultural, medical anthropological research approach, the purpose of this research was to investigate maternal stress in the United States...
Political Polarization in the United States is at a level higher today than at any point in the past few decades. Possible causes of this rise in polarization have been provided from various sources, including explanations such as mass media and income inequality. Through historical analysis and a wide literature...
Public policy narratives and stories are often referenced by the media, politicians, advocacy groups, and across many disciplines in academia. Studies of social and political narratives support the notion narrative matters, but often lack systematic design capable of producing generalizable findings. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has responded to this...