Listeria monocytogenes contamination continues to pose challenges for the food industry and there is demand for effective methods of food preservation and protection that can also be considered clean label. A promising source of antilisterial compounds may be sourced from bacteria that produce novel byproducts. Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified...
Food waste (FW), brewery waste (BW), and fats, oils, and greases (FOG), are prevalent waste streams in municipalities across the country, particularly in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Anaerobic digestion (AD), the microbial-mediated transformation of organic waste into methane-rich biogas, offers a sustainable, energy-generating, waste management solution for these wastes. Anaerobic...
In recent years, non-renewable and non-biodegradable plastic packaging forms the majority of landfilled waste. These products, mainly made from Polyethylene Tetraphlatate (PET) and other polyolefins, have excellent durability and barrier properties, but take hundreds of years to degrade.
Much focus has been put on developing environmentally friendly alternatives to polyolefins...
Mountain search and rescue is a vital form of emergency response to assist people in austere environments (e.g., extreme terrain, poor weather). Volunteer mountain search and rescue teams in the United States have begun adopting consumer- grade unmanned aerial vehicles to assist a variety of tasks (e.g., search, resource delivery);...
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,...
2020 and 2021 brought the first reported outbreaks of salmonellosis epidemiologically linked to dry bulb onions in the United States. Outbreak investigations were not able to implicate a specific source of the contamination but speculated that contaminated water was a significant contributor. The Produce Safety Rule established minimum standards for...
Modular construction is increasingly seen as an efficient construction method in terms of time, cost, and energy. The full realization of these advantages partly relies on the efficiency of the production process inside the modular factories, which currently rely on tedious manual monitoring methods or expensive automated techniques. As a...
Tsunami inundation of coastal communities can impose a wide array of forces on the
built environment. Forces generated by tsunami-driven debris damming have the potential to
cause failure of coastal structures and further accumulate flow-entrained debris. Since tsunami-resilient design standards were adopted by ASCE in 2016, debris damming considerations have...
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 Northern Rubber Boa (Charina bottae) is a small, secretive boa native to the Pacific Northwest. Despite this being possibly the highest latitude boas and one of only two boas native to the continental U.S., it has received surprisingly little attention. Most of the research on the natural history of...