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...
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,...
The demand for the development of sustainable energy is an all time high as we burn through limited fossil fuel reserves and as environmental concerns rise every year. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power have limitations due to inconsistent power supply that cannot meet the regular needs...
Modern engineered systems are increasingly integrated into society, decentralized, and interconnected. However, scale and complexity create unique challenges in system design, such as emergent behavior and unintended consequences. This work investigates the structural characteristics of robustness in complex engineered systems by identifying patterns of under-recognized vulnerabilities at various levels of...
This dissertation seeks to understand Yi farmers’ livelihoods in the midst of an agricultural transition in Yunnan, Southwest China. This dissertation examines a community’s traditional knowledge related to wild edible plants (WEPs), analyzes socio-ecological vulnerability and resilience in the face of agricultural transition from subsistence farming to cash cropping, and...
The ability to create reproducible cryptographically secure keys from temporal environments (e.g., images) has the potential to be a contributor to effective cryptographic mechanisms. Due to the noisy nature of these environments, achieving this goal in a user friendly fashion is a very challenging task, especially since there exists a...
This thesis explore the effects of China's Grassland Contract policy on sedentary and mobile Inner Mongolian pastoralists' attitudes towards cooperation, current grassland management practices, and the future viability of livestock herding in New Barag Right Banner, Inner Mongolia. Semi-structured interviews, a scaled survey instrument, and participant observation were carried out...
This ethnographic research aims to discover the implications of the
commodification of production processes amongst the Ersu Tibetans of Sichuan,
China. This thesis examines the commodification of Ersu agriculture and ethnic
identity in the historical context of both China and the world-system. Ethnohistorical
and ethnoecological methodologies are utilized to answer...
The use of semi-volatile organic compounds (SOCs) as molecular markers to identify the contributions of regional and long-range atmospheric transport, as well as current and historic sources, and contaminant deposition in remote ecosystems of the Western U.S. was investigated. Trans-Pacific air masses influenced by Siberian biomass burning events had elevated...
This thesis uses an anthropological approach to examine the current social status
of the young elderly in contemporary urban China and explores the problems these people
are facing. A review of literature sets up complementary theoretical frameworks for the
understanding of the interaction between changing social environment and transitional life...