Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is an abnormal part of aging that mainly affects those over the age of 65. The current therapies are only FDA approved for mild to moderate AD symptoms. Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating constituent of Cannabis sativa that has been shown to have beneficial effects on cancer,...
Combustion emissions produced from burning real transportation fuels have many environmental impacts. However, detailed chemistry across multiple phases, time scales, and thermodynamic conditions make predicting combustion emissions challenging. Detailed modeling of the gas phase alone is prohibitively expensive, due to the large size and stiffness of the kinetic models. The...
The pregnancy and postpartum periods are full of major life transitions. So often, the focus of the literature is about the unborn baby and physical changes a woman experiences throughout this timeframe. Many sources often overlook women’s personal experiences in the perinatal period. Despite an increase in perinatal mood and...
Individuals who are parents and students on TANF experience challenges accessing and persisting in higher education. This study explored the experiences of TANF recipients who are navigating a return to higher education and the impact of college on how they construct a future self. Two theoretical frameworks were used to...
In recent years, unoccupied aircraft systems (UAS) have become increasingly affordable and straightforward to incorporate in monitoring applications of forested ecosystems. This shift has facilitated interest in using these tools to monitor aspects of forest ecosystems including vegetation health, forest structure and composition, and potential habitat provided by these systems....
The spring bloom is a key oceanic phenomenon in the Northern Gulf of Alaska (NGA), where it supports the regional ecosystem, fisheries, and CO2 sequestration. Despite its significance, mechanisms that trigger NGA blooms are still debated, largely due to a lack of sufficient data from late winter through spring. New...
Despite an increase in the number of people who rely on manual wheelchairs, there are still substantial economic barriers to affordable and accessible localization systems. As a result, there is a pressing need to build a versatile yet low cost localization system for manual wheelchairs. Such systems allow users to...
Zinc is an important micronutrient involved in many cellular processes, including those part of immune function; however, about 15% of the US population is at risk for marginal zinc deficiency. This can lead to immune system complications including the generation of inflammatory cytokines. Aging is another factor that worsens the...
This paper addresses the high model complexity and overconfident frame labeling of state-of-the-art (SOTA) action segmenters. Their complexity is typically justified by the need to sequentially refine action segmentation through multiple stages of a deep architecture. However, this multistage refinement does not take into account uncertainty of frame labeling predicted...
Managed honey bees (Apis mellifera) play a vital role in pollinating cultivated crops worldwide. Honey bee colony declines reported in the past two decades have been associated with stressors such as pests and diseases, pesticide exposure, and poor nutrition. In the wake of these colony declines, beekeepers have strived to...
In some legislative bodies, the use of terms like climate change and global warming is frequently seen as taboo. In the United States, voters who identify as right-leaning have reported little concern about the environment or climate change. This lack of interest is mirrored by Republican legislators who often publicly...
Geospatial data analysis is a multifaceted discipline encompassing the collection, processing, and visualization of diverse datasets. It models and delineates the interactions of people, objects, and phenomena within geographical spaces and predicts patterns based on the relationships between different locations. Despite significant advancements in geospatial data engineering and analytics over...
Climate change will require families to withstand and adapt to potentially novel impacts in their forests, requiring both ecological and social resiliency. When facing a future of complex and uncertain conditions, family forest owners need more information on the magnitude and direction of change, which can be best accomplished through...
Land management agencies are faced with decreasing budgets and staff, even as acres in need of restoration treatment are increasing. Rural communities in the West are still suffering from sharp declines in timber harvests since the 1990s and are now contending with wildfires that are increasing in size and severity....
Freshwater systems cycle carbon along a spatial and temporal biogeochemical continuum, across which ecosystem processes contribute to transformations of organic matter (OM). Various ecological constraints impact rates OM transformation and production and consumption of the energetic end of respiration, methane. Microbiological processing and complete reduction of carbon substrates to methane...
Coral reefs, found in tropical regions, are renowned for their rich biodiversity and their contributions to ecological, cultural, and economic aspects worldwide. The success of coral reefs hinges on the symbiotic partnership between corals and their dinoflagellate algae, from the family Symbiodiniaceae. The algae reside within the coral host’s gastrodermal...
There is a growing need for individualized instructional designs in 4-year institutions due to: 1) growing undergraduate enrollment trends across the U.S., 2) broader diversity in students backgrounds, and 3) the growing prevalence of asynchronous remote learning. With the growth in computer technology in education, tools such as adaptive intelligent...
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is a Knowledge-belief-practice system acquired through intergenerational direct and indirect observations representing past and current understandings of environments and integrates Indigenous value systems. TEK has become a popular topic recently as Indigenous stewarded lands contain more biodiversity and are more adaptable. It is critical for Indigenous...
Since the decline of salmonid populations in the Pacific Northwest, supplementation programs have become frequently implemented by hatcheries as a way to protect and conserve wild stock. However, hatchery-reared fish have lower fitness than wild fish which is likely due to adaptation to the hatchery environment, i.e., domestication selection. Fish...
Long field-life systems are those for which operational, as opposed to capital, expenditures dominate the life time cost of the system. In established product categories, operational experience and historical maintenance data allows engineers to make informed decisions influencing maintenance during the early design stages when design changes are at their...
Early seral forests regenerating from stand-replacing disturbances provide unique habitat for many species in productive, temperate forest landscapes and contribute to supporting biodiversity. Population declines in some species associated with early seral forests have prompted concerns about the conservation of these habitats, particularly the characteristic structural and compositional complexity associated...
Honey bees are vital for our food production and ecosystem due to their critical pollination services. The beekeepers in the United States and worldwide have reported significant colony losses for over fifteen years. Several stressors are implicated in these colony declines, including parasites, diseases, poor nutrition, and pesticide exposure. There...
Devaleraea mollis (Pacific Dulse) is becoming a popular food for human consumption. Previously, Pacific Dulse has been used as a nutrient source for cultured abalone species, with some historical food use by indigenous peoples, while the closely related Atlantic dulse (Palmaria palmata) has a long-documented history of use in cuisine...
Cell signaling under external stimulation is a critical mechanism that governs many biological processes such as cell proliferation, cell migration, and cell apoptosis, etc. For multicellular organisms, the ability to synchronize heterogeneous individual cellular responses through intercellular communication is crucial to maintain normal functionality. However, even though the biological pathways...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Oregon's estuaries are important ecosystems for scientific study. Consequently, knowledge of what research has been conducted helps us identify benchmarks and plan new projects. A comprehensive bibliography of published research, technical reports, local documents, and data sets is one means of recording this knowledge. For these reasons, the Guin Library...
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a prevalent gastrointestinal disorder experienced by 10–15% of the global population, manifesting as chronic abdominal pain, bloating and inconsistent bowel habits. The search for effective treatments remains ongoing. One promising contender in this realm is kappa-casein glycomacropeptide (GMP), a milk-derived peptide. Its potential benefits stem...
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a problem for coastal communities, the fishing industry, and coastal organisms. Pseudo-nitzschia spp. is a regularly occurring diatom in Oregon’s coastal waters. At times, Pseudo-nitzschia spp. can facultatively produce domoic acid, a neurotoxin that can bioaccumulate in the food chain. While regular shore-based sampling provides...
There could be a geospatial and socio-ecological intersection between climate change, energy production, and sustainable fisheries management in the United States. Marine renewable energy generation efforts are currently being planned, studied, and initially implemented in the country as a response to climate change. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is...
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...
Aligning Real-Time Networks (RTNs) with the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) is crucial to ensure accuracy, consistency, interoperability, and long-term data integrity for geospatial applications. However, the effectiveness of different alignment methods as well as the need for monitoring approaches to maintain alignment consistency with the NSRS have not yet...
Anthropogenic induced climate change is predicted to alter distribution of existing plant populations. As plants migrate over space and time, populations often fragment and contract, affecting basic elements of population dynamics (e.g., population size, gene flow, genetic diversity, etc.). Little is known, however, how these impacts on plant species will...
To facilitate the design of Natural and Nature-Based Features (NNBF) for flood protection, this thesis expands an existing engineering design methodology to NNBF systems. The existing approach is a Level III reliability method for the performance-based design of traditional coastal engineering systems. The expanded methodology incorporates uncertainties inherent to both...
In Oregon perennial and annual grass seed cropping systems conservation management practices and their impacts on soil health and soil microbial community is not well understood. There is strong motivation to employ conservation tillage and other conservation practices to curb atmospheric carbon levels and improve soil health. However, the few...
The seafood industry has a problem of underutilization of harvested and processed fish. Up to 60% of the weight of the fish is considered a byproduct that is typically made into fishmeal for livestock and aquaculture feed, a low-value and non-food grade product. Two species that make up major fisheries...
Over time, Open Source Software (OSS) has become indispensable in the creation and upkeep of software products, serving as the fundamental building block for widely used solutions in our daily lives, including applications that enable communication, entertainment, and productivity. A sustainable OSS ecosystem is one that attracts and retains a...
While digital inclusivity researchers and software practitioners have been trying to address exclusion biases in Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers (WIMP) user interfaces (UIs) for a long time, little has been done to investigate if and how inclusive software design and its methods that have been devised for WIMP UIs...
A dissertation describing the results of a series of greenhouse experiments conducted to better understand phytoremediation in stormwater bioretention systems.
In this study, 3D finite difference and 2D finite element forward modeling were used to create an electromagnetic sensitivity analysis for the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador. Magnetotellurics (MT) is a natural-source electromagnetic geophysical technique that images electrical conductivity. Measuring strong contrasts in electrical conductivity in volcanic materials allows for the...
Chapter 2:
Aquatic macroinvertebrate communities have been shown to exhibit strong differences between erosional (riffle and run) and depositional (pool) macrohabitats of streams. A subset of these communities are aquatic insect taxa that are an important food source for riparian consumers like birds, bats, lizards, and spiders. Understanding the role...
Concrete has been categorized as a key contributor of CO2 (carbon) emissions into the atmosphere. This is mostly associated with the production of ordinary portland cement (OPC). The concrete and cement industries are pursuing a path to reduce their carbon emissions generally in accordance with the climate change goals outlined...
The southern San Andreas fault (SSAF) is the fault segment with the highest 30-year probability of causing a moderate to large magnitude earthquake in California, yet key structural characteristics of the fault remain unconstrained, particularly in the Coachella Valley where the fault splits into the Banning (BF) and Mission Creek...
As global atmospheric carbon emissions continue to rise, scientists and land managers are increasingly looking to natural ecosystems to sequester and store carbon to buffer the impacts of climate change. Despite their small geographic size, many coastal ecosystems such as salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangroves sequester large amounts of...