The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of social interaction and social comfort among five undergraduate ethnic groups: African American, American Indian, Asian American, Caucasian American, and Hispanic American. Another purpose was to explore the correlation between the level of social contact and comfort among the five...
This thesis examines depictions of medievalism in three central texts: Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. Each of these texts provides an entry point for exploring the ways in which English and American writers have...
Debris flows are a major cause of disturbance to riparian vegetation. Both observational and experimental studies were used to examine the initial recovery of riparian vegetation after debris flows on headwater streams in the western Cascades of Oregon. My goal was to determine the roles of seedlings and vegetative sprouts,...
Female athletes exhibit three- to six-fold greater incidence of noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury relative to their male counterparts. The increased risk appears to stem from interactions between several risk factors, that can roughly be categorized as anatomic, biomechanical, hormonal, and neuromuscular. Neuromuscular risk factors have recently gained a...
Ambifunctional axially chiral 2,2',6,6'-tetrasubstituted biphenyls containing nucleophilic (or basic) functional groups juxtaposed with hydrogen-bond donors were synthesized and their properties studied. Applications for the prepared biaryls as potential organocatalysts for enantioselective carbon-carbon bond forming reactions were examined. Processes investigated included: aldol, Michael, nitroaldol (Henry), and Baylis-Hillman reactions.
The novel amidoamine...
Recent shifts from clearcutting to partial retention harvesting on many ownerships and the importance of microclimate dynamics on biotic responses to regional climate highlight the need to understand how microclimate conditions in forest understories differ across gradients of partial overstories. This study compares below-canopy near-surface temperatures at 2cm above ground...
Karl Jordan (1861-1959) was an extraordinarily productive entomologist who influenced the development of systematics, entomology, and naturalists' theoretical framework as well as their practice. He has been a figure in existing accounts of the naturalist tradition between 1890 and 1940 that have defended the relative contribution of naturalists to the...
Currently, the only anthrax vaccine licensed for human use in the United States is the Anthrax-vaccine-absorbed (AVA or Biothrax®). AVA suffers from several drawbacks, including a complicated and lengthy dosing schedule that requires six initial injections administered over eighteen months, followed by annual boosters. Therefore, a new generation anthrax vaccine...
In a process called quorum sensing (QS), the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses small diffusible signals to coordinate cooperative behaviors via secreted “public goods”. Under QS-dependent growth conditions, social cheaters arise with mutations in lasR, the gene for the primary QS signal receptor. These cheaters do not produce public goods....
The silviculture of mixed dipterocarp forests of Peninsular Malaysia can potentially be improved by developing quantitative tools and guidelines for this forest type. This thesis addresses three key objectives; 1) to test the hypothesis that a maximum size-density relationship can be identified in hill dipterocarp forests of Peninsular Malaysia, 2)...