Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a genetic inborn metabolic disorder which inhibits the functional production of the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH). It currently affects one in 15,000 Americans and is the most common amino acid metabolism error found in newborns. Individuals affected with PKU are incapable of metabolizing the amino acid, phenylalanine...
This project determined how the presence of environmental biofilms on sand, granular activated carbon and biochar affected the sorption capacity and desorption quantity of copper, zinc, nutrients and organic carbon from stormwater. These contaminants have harmful and toxic environmental impacts on aquatic life, can lead to eutrophication of surface waters,...
Spraying of liquid adhesive onto wood surfaces has shown to be a highly effective and efficient method of application across many different wood-based composite industries. However, the dynamics of spraying are extremely variable and distribution can be affected by liquid properties (rheology, molecular weight distribution, and temperature), application parameters (disk...
The Taskforce on Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Programs was given the mission to examine interdisciplinary graduate education programs at a range of institutions around the US, and to identify successful models that could inform the revitalization of interdisciplinary graduate education at Oregon State University. The taskforce examined programs at 29 universities...
The free amino acid content of the intracellular pools in higher
marine fungi was determined by thin-layer and gas-liquid chromatography.
The organisms investigated include:
Ascomycetes; Nais inornata, Leptosphaeria oraemaris, Corollospora
maritima, Haligena elaterophora, Halosphaeria mediosetigera, Halosphaeria
appendiculata, Halosphaeria quadriremis, Lignincola Laervis
and Remispora hamata, and Fungi Imperfecti; Zalerion maritimum and...
School systems have an important responsibility to continuously
examine and review their educational programs to determine if the
programs satisfy the needs of the youth they serve. Systematically
collected data derived from former and present students can enable
the school system to appraise its effectiveness in fulfilling the aim
it...
Sequential aerial photography was used to identify effects of hiking trails
on the spatial distribution of subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) habitat at alpine treeline.
Vegetation change over a 46 year period was compared along trails relative to areas
without trails, at five study sites in the McDonald Creek drainage of...
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 potassium salts of a series of 1-vinylcycloalk-3-en-l-ols were found to undergo ring expanding [1, 3]-sigmatropic shifts at 25° when dissolved in hexamethylphosphoramide (HMPA) or 1, 2-dimethoxyethane (DME) with 18-crown-6. The yields and reaction rates were compared with those of the corresponding Siloxy-Cope ring expansions. These anionic cases showed about...
The purpose of this study was to seek information regarding
issues around which dating decisions were made and some of the steps
college freshmen women considered in deciding for or against certain
courses of action while random and steady dating. A second more
general purpose was to determine if the...
Studies were conducted to investigate the metabolism of
selenium (Se) , and the influences of Se on the metabolism of cadmium (Cd) and inorganic mercury (Hg) in rats, and in ram semen in
vitro. Se-deficient (-Se) or Se-adequate (+Se) rats were injected intraperitoneally with either ¹⁰⁹CdCl₂ (5 μCi/rat) or ²⁰³HgN0₃...
The two major purposes of this study were: (1) to test the
assumption that the IT Scale for Children (standard-ITSC) can be used
as a measure of both appropriate sex role discrimination and sex role
preference with preschool aged children, and (2) to extend previous
studies in these areas by...
The settlement history of a remote area in the Coast Range of Oregon, from the 1870s to the 1930s, is examined through factors that may have influenced the success or failure, and length of residence of the homesteaders and later residents. Despite the rugged and isolated location, a small community...
The settlement history of a remote area in the Coast Range of Oregon, from the 1870s to the 1930s, is examined through factors that may have influenced the success or failure, and length of residence of the homesteaders and later residents. Despite the rugged and isolated location, a small community...
Red Light Ladies presents a perspective on prostitution in North America, within the context of the western mining frontier. A biographical profile of the frontier
prostitutor is presented, along with an archaeological model of settlement patterns and material culture. Settlement patterns and demographic changes in the prostitutor
population are hypothetically...
This thesis consists of three studies to better understand the environmental sustainability potential for algal-based biofuels. Initially, a comparison of recent life cycle assessments (LCA) of theoretical full-scale algal biofuel facilities was developed. These studies include varying boundaries and scope, functional units, and technology maturity assumptions. The comparison converted results...
Although deep reinforcement learning agents have produced impressive results in many domains, their decision making is difficult to explain to humans. To address this problem, past work has mainly focused on explaining why an action was chosen in a given state. A different type of explanation that is useful is...
Heterogeneous catalysis modulates the rate and selectivity of reaction processes by
stabilizing a series of intermediate states on solid surfaces, facilitating the production
of many commodity chemicals modern society relies upon. Conventional, thermal
catalytic processes—conducted at elevated temperatures and pressures—source
thermal, mechanical, and chemical potential energy from carbon-hydrogen bonds—
combustion...
Recognizing human actions in videos is a long-standing problem in computer vision with a wide range of applications including video surveillance, content retrieval, and sports analysis. This thesis focuses on addressing efficiency and robustness of video classification in unconstrained real-world settings. The thesis work can be broadly divided into four...
Gene regulation is a complex mechanism that controls the spatial and temporal expression of genes in a living cell. My dissertation studies focus on two problems. First, tissue-specific gene expression prediction from DNA sequence and chromatin state, and second, the accurate discovery of small over-represented regulatory circuits in gene regulatory...
Currently the production of biofuel from algae is not economically competitive with petroleum fuel. However, co-production of high-value products may be able to justify the cost of large-scale algae cultivation. The basic goal of this study is to develop a techno-economic analysis (TEA) and Life-cycle assessment (LCA) for the production...
Hand detection is a fundamental step for many hand-related computer vision tasks, such as gesture recognition, hand pose estimation, hand sign language translation, and so on. However, robustly detecting hands is a challenging task because of drastic changes in appearance based on finger articulation and changes in lighting conditions, camera...
Nanoparticles (NPs), defined by their size (1-100 nm), are increasingly incorporated into commercial and industrial products due to their high surface area and unique properties. They can be designed for specific applications by manipulating composition, size, shape, and surface functionalization. As NP production and complexity increases, there is a need...
Heavy metals, such as copper, zinc, and cadmium, are ubiquitous in stormwater and potentially toxic to aquatic organisms at low concentrations. Removal of heavy metals contamination by conventional treatment is expensive and does not always reduce metals concentrations low enough to ensure safety of all aquatic species. This research seeks...
Metal oxide nanoparticles (MONPs) are manufactured at the greatest rate of any class of nanomaterial due to their wide variety of industrial, commercial, and environmental applications. The sustainable use of MONPs requires a balance of careful consideration of their potential negative environmental impacts with the effective exploitation of their unique...
The fragmentation characteristics of protonated peptides have been investigated using
tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) under various fragmentation regimes and detailed
density functional theory (DFT) reaction pathway calculations. The DFT calculations
predict novel salt-bridge stabilized transition structures as well as consecutive reactions
occurring in proton-bound dimers for some of the ions...
This thesis is an account of my investigation on the natural products deriving from various marine algae and has resulted in the discovery of thirteen novel bioactive metabolites. Isolation and characterization of these unique molecules were carried out using different chromatographic techniques and by careful analyses of 1D and 2D...
Substantial scientific investment has been directed towards understanding factors that influence distribution patterns and animals' remarkable ability for precise orientation and navigation, yet fundamental gaps in our knowledge remain. In my dissertation, I applied emerging genetic technologies to conduct a top-down and bottom-up investigation of animal movement and cue perception....
Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models impact our daily lives with applications in natural language modeling, image analysis, healthcare, genomics, and bioinformatics. The exponential growth of biological sequence data necessitates accompanying advances in computational methods. Although deep learning is highly effective for detecting and classifying biological sequences, challenges...
Accurate estimates of water losses by evaporation from shallow water tables are important for hydrological, agricultural, and climatic purposes. An experiment was conducted in a weighing lysimeter to characterize the diurnal dynamics of evaporation under natural conditions. Sampling revealed a completely dry surface sand layer after 5 days of evaporation....
The movement of air in natural porous media is complex and challenging to measure. Yet gas transport has important implications, for instance, for the evolution of the seasonal snow cover and for water vapor transport in soil. A novel in situ multi-sensor measurement system providing high-resolution observation of gas transport...
Observations of temperature, winds, and atmospheric trace gases suggest that the transition from troposphere to stratosphere occurs in a layer, rather than at a sharp ‘‘tropopause.’’ In the tropics, this layer is often called the ‘‘tropical tropopause layer’’ (TTL). We present an overview of observations in the TTL and discuss...
Climate Change in the Northwest: Implications for Our Landscapes, Waters, and Communities is a report aimed at assessing the state of knowledge about key climate impacts and consequences to various sectors and communities in the Northwest United States. This report draws on two recent state climate assessments in Washington in...
Processes of metamorphosis, settlement, and growth were examined in Pacific sanddab
using field studies and otolith microstructure. This flatfish transforms at large sizes, has a
gradual metamorphosis, and settles to a nursery on the middle continental shelf. Eye migration
takes 3 months and "metamorphosis proper" which begins after completion of...
Coastal and estuarine flooding and erosion events are usually driven by the cumulative effect of multiple individual processes like waves, streamflow, storm surge, and/or tides. This dissertation focuses on separating the influence of the regional and local-scale geomorphologic and hydrodynamic processes driving variability in the magnitude and impacts of extreme...
In the spring of 1992 an optical closure experiment was conducted at Lake
Pend Oreille, Idaho. A primary objective of the experiment was to compare techniques
for the measurement of the spectral absorption coefficient and other inherent optical
properties of natural waters. Daily averages of absorption coefficients measured using
six...
The atomic age was enacted by many scientists as a way to realize health and human rights. Human rights were conceived in this context as rights to economic development, science education, and nuclear medicine. The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) acted hand in hand with UN agencies and educators...
Published June 1934. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
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...
American meteorology was synonymous with subjective weather forecasting in the early twentieth century. Controlled by the Weather Bureau and with no academic programs of its own, the few hundred extant meteorologists had no standing in the scientific community. Until the American Meteorological Society was founded in 1919, meteorologists had no...
This analysis concerns the life and scientific work of Henry
Augustus Rowland (1848-1901), organizer and the first chairman of
the physics department at The Johns Hopkins University in 1876.
Special materials used in this research included three pieces of
Rowland's experimental apparatus which are extant in the Smithsonian
Institution Division...