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All Master's Theses

2018

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Articles 1 - 25 of 25

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Geomorphic Consequences Of Hydroelectricity And Transportation Development Near Celilo Falls, Lower Mid-Columbia River, Washington, Noah I. Oliver Jan 2018

Geomorphic Consequences Of Hydroelectricity And Transportation Development Near Celilo Falls, Lower Mid-Columbia River, Washington, Noah I. Oliver

All Master's Theses

Along the Columbia River, hundreds of miles of transportation infrastructure and over sixty hydroelectric dams have been constructed. This altered a rich cultural landscape with evidence of 10,000 years of continuous occupation. Researchers have attempted to understand the impacts of anthropogenic factors on the Columbia River, focusing on the riverine environment. However, the effect of transportation and hydroelectricity developments to eolian landforms on the floodplains and adjoining slopes have not been studied. Focusing on 2,800 acres near Celilo Falls, this study 1) establishes a baseline condition of eolian landforms from 1805 to 1900; 2) conducts an air photo increment analysis …

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Intertidal Habitat Utilization By Endangered Green Sturgeon (Acipenser Medirostris), Willapa Bay, Washington, Luke Stilwater Jan 2018

Intertidal Habitat Utilization By Endangered Green Sturgeon (Acipenser Medirostris), Willapa Bay, Washington, Luke Stilwater

All Master's Theses

This study looks at a portion of the designated critical habitat for the threatened southern distinct population segment of green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris) in Willapa Bay, Washington. Willapa Bay is an intermediate size (258.7mi2) estuary on the southwest coast of Washington State, approximately 30 miles north from the mouth of the Columbia River. Recent studies completed by the National Marine Fisheries Service have shown that significant aggregations of green sturgeon in Willapa Bay occur during the late summer months, and foraging activity for burrowing ghost shrimp (Neotrypaea californiensis) is evidenced by small round feeding pits (30-60 cm diameter) in the …

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Two Post-Glacial Sagebrush Steppe Fire Records At The Wildland-Urban Interface, Eastern Cascades, Washington, Dusty Pilkington Jan 2018

Two Post-Glacial Sagebrush Steppe Fire Records At The Wildland-Urban Interface, Eastern Cascades, Washington, Dusty Pilkington

All Master's Theses

Recent increases in large fires in the rapidly developing wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas of central Washington, where development intermixes with wildland fuels, contribute to federal firefighting costs exceeding of $1 billion annually. In addition, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) invasion and anthropogenic-caused warming shorten fire return intervals while lengthening fire seasons. These climatic, ecological, economic, and social factors combine with fuel accumulation resulting from historic fire suppression to threaten lives and property in the WUI. To plan for safe growth in WUI areas, long-term fire histories are needed to expand understanding of past fire regimes in an understudied ecosystem, sagebrush …

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Data Visualization And Classification Of Artificially Created Images, Dmytro Dovhalets Jan 2018

Data Visualization And Classification Of Artificially Created Images, Dmytro Dovhalets

All Master's Theses

Visualization of multidimensional data is a long-standing challenge in machine learning and knowledge discovery. A problem arises as soon as 4-dimensions are introduced since we live in a 3-dimensional world. There are methods out there which can visualize multidimensional data, but loss of information and clutter are still a problem. General Line Coordinates (GLC) can losslessly project n-dimensional data in 2- dimensions. A new method is introduced based on GLC called GLC-L. This new method can do interactive visualization, dimension reduction, and supervised learning. One of the applications of GLC-L is transformation of vector data into image data. This novel …

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Quantifying Sedimentation Patterns Of Small Watersheds In The Central Oregon Coast Range Using Landslide-Dammed Lakes, Logan Wetherell Jan 2018

Quantifying Sedimentation Patterns Of Small Watersheds In The Central Oregon Coast Range Using Landslide-Dammed Lakes, Logan Wetherell

All Master's Theses

Up to 250 years of sedimentation patterns in headwater streams are preserved with detail in landslide-dammed lakes of the central Oregon Coast Range. I hypothesize that both anthropogenic and natural perturbations should increase linear and mass sediment accumulation rates and be discernible spatially and temporally in the sediment record with use of 137Cs, high resolution charcoal stratigraphy, and aerial photography. Klickitat Lake and Wasson Lake are landslide-dammed lakes in small watersheds (<10 >km2) that contain drowned Douglas-fir stumps that are used for accurate dendrochronology and precise timing of the lake formation. An age-depth relationship was developed using …

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Cascade Annulation And Ring-Opening Reactions Of Castagnoli-Cushman-Derived Allylic And Benzylic Thiomorpholinonates, Abdikani Omar Farah Jan 2018

Cascade Annulation And Ring-Opening Reactions Of Castagnoli-Cushman-Derived Allylic And Benzylic Thiomorpholinonates, Abdikani Omar Farah

All Master's Theses

Sulfur-containing compounds are prevalent in antibiotics, essential amino acids, bacterial RNA, food flavors, and enzymes. The divalent sulfur atom introduces a metabolic liability from a drug discovery standpoint. Indeed, it is quite telling that all the top ten best-selling drugs in 2012 contained sulfur. In this context, there is a growing need for the synthesis of sulfur-containing compounds in ways that are practical and cost-effective. One approach taken to achieve this goal is to employ diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS), which produces diverse complex molecules with similar core structures from a common precursor. When a DOS features a cascade or domino reaction …

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Decreasing Occlusion And Increasing Explanation In Interactive Visual Knowledge Discovery, Abdulrahman Ahmed Gharawi Jan 2018

Decreasing Occlusion And Increasing Explanation In Interactive Visual Knowledge Discovery, Abdulrahman Ahmed Gharawi

All Master's Theses

Lack of explanation and occlusion are the major problems for interactive visual knowledge discovery, machine learning and data mining in multidimensional data. This thesis proposes a hybrid method that combines visual and analytical means to deal with these problems. This method, denoted as FSP, uses visualization of n-D data in 2-D in a set of Shifted Paired Coordinates (SPC). SPC for n-D data consists of n/2 pairs of Cartesian coordinates that are shifted relative to each other to avoid their overlap. Each n-D point is represented as a directed graph in SPC. It is shown that the FSP method simplifies …

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Assessing The Use Of Tsunami Simulations As A Tool To Predict Source Magnitudes And Locations Of Paleoearthquakes In Chile, Rebeca Isabel Becerra Jan 2018

Assessing The Use Of Tsunami Simulations As A Tool To Predict Source Magnitudes And Locations Of Paleoearthquakes In Chile, Rebeca Isabel Becerra

All Master's Theses

A long-term goal of paleotsunami studies is the ability to predict paleoearthquake parameters based on tsunami deposits found on land. Chile provides an exemplary location for testing methods of making these predictions because the historical record includes 41 major earthquakes as far back as 1562 AD, and there are many known paleotsunami deposits throughout the region. Using these records as a comparison tool, I evaluated simulated tsunami wave heights and inundation extent with the tsunami model GeoClaw for nine hypothetical tsunamigenic large earthquakes (Mw 8.6, 8.8, and 9.0) in south-central Chile with epicenters at -35.1º, -38.8º, and -42.9º. As …

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Developing, Piloting, And Factor Analysis Of A Brief Survey Tool For Evaluating Food And Composting Behaviors: The Short Composting Survey, Jennie Norton Jan 2018

Developing, Piloting, And Factor Analysis Of A Brief Survey Tool For Evaluating Food And Composting Behaviors: The Short Composting Survey, Jennie Norton

All Master's Theses

Composting on a university campus may take a variety of forms. Sustainable approaches to waste management can be taught and supported through educational programs, peer-to-peer behavior modeling, and composting program interventions. Although peer-reviewed research on composting interventions is somewhat lacking, student interest in the topic is demonstrated by a range of exploratory senior projects and pilot interventions conducted at colleges across the United States and abroad. The purpose of this study was twofold: conduct an educational compost intervention pilot study and develop a survey tool to measure participant attitudes surrounding food behaviors and composting. The Compost Project pilot study focused …

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Determination Of The Oxidative Capacity Of Soot Toward Gsh And Characterization Of Soot Physicochemical Properties, Kaylee Troth Jan 2018

Determination Of The Oxidative Capacity Of Soot Toward Gsh And Characterization Of Soot Physicochemical Properties, Kaylee Troth

All Master's Theses

Fine atmospheric particulate matter (PM2.5) emitted during the combustion of fossil and biomass fuels is known to adversely affect human health. While the underlying mechanisms are thought to be driven by the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), specific particle characteristics responsible for this detrimental effect are not well understood. In this research, the quantitative determination of the biologically relevant antioxidant, glutathione (GSH), was optimized for use as an indicator of oxidative stress to shed light on relevant particle characteristics. This was accomplished via fluorescent spectroscopy for GSH determination by way of reaction with o-phthalaldehyde (OPA), a …

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Tsunami Excitation Estimation From Real-Time Gnss, Catherine Jeffries Jan 2018

Tsunami Excitation Estimation From Real-Time Gnss, Catherine Jeffries

All Master's Theses

Tsunami early warning systems currently comprise modeling of observations from the global seismic network, deep-ocean DART buoys, and a global distribution of tide gauges. While these tools work well for tsunamis traveling teleseismic distances, saturation of seismic magnitude estimation in the near field can result in significant underestimation of tsunami excitation for local warning (Wang et al., 2012). Moreover, DART buoy and tide gauge observations cannot be used to rectify the underestimation in the available time, typically 10-20 minutes, before local runup occurs. Real-time GNSS measurements of coseismic offsets may be used to estimate finite faulting within 1-2 minutes and, …

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Characterization Of Coacervate Systems Using Redox Sensitive Dyes, Caleb Kaiser Jan 2018

Characterization Of Coacervate Systems Using Redox Sensitive Dyes, Caleb Kaiser

All Master's Theses

Coacervates are systems that spontaneously form when two oppositely charged polyelectrolytes are mixed in a concentrated salt solution. When coacervates form, a biphasic equilibrium occurs in the sample with two phases present in the solution. The two phases are described as the dense phase and the lean phase, named after the amount of polyelectrolyte material in each phase. Coacervates have been topics of interest to researchers in a variety of fields including biomedical applications, drug delivery devices, and more. This thesis worked towards the characterization of coacervate systems on the molecular level by investigating the interaction of the polyelectrolytes and …

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Giant Plagioclase In The Steens Basalt, Se Oregon: Cumulate Entrainment Revealed By Textural And In Situ Chemical Analysis, Conner H. Toth Jan 2018

Giant Plagioclase In The Steens Basalt, Se Oregon: Cumulate Entrainment Revealed By Textural And In Situ Chemical Analysis, Conner H. Toth

All Master's Theses

Many of the lava flows comprising the Steens Basalt in SE Oregon, the oldest and most mafic formation of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG), contain exceptionally large (up to 5 cm) and abundant (up to 40 modal %) plagioclase crystals. This thesis presents a model for giant plagioclase formation in a complex system that integrates petrographic and in situ plagioclase compositional analyses with whole-rock data and computational modeling to explain systematic textural and chemical differences between plagioclase of the lower and upper Steens Basalt sub-sections. Lower Steens plagioclase are typically more chemically homogenous than upper Steens plagioclase and exhibit …

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Spike-Based Classification Of Uci Datasets With Multi-Layer Resume-Like Tempotron, Sami Abdul-Wahid Jan 2018

Spike-Based Classification Of Uci Datasets With Multi-Layer Resume-Like Tempotron, Sami Abdul-Wahid

All Master's Theses

Spiking neurons are a class of neuron models that represent information in timed sequences called ``spikes.'' Though predominantly used in neuro-scientific investigations, spiking neural networks (SNN) can be applied to machine learning problems such as classification and regression. SNN are computationally more powerful per neuron than traditional neural networks. Though training time is slow on general purpose computers, spike-based hardware implementations are faster and have shown capability for ultra-low power consumption. Additionally, various SNN training algorithms have achieved comparable performance with the State of the Art on the Fisher Iris dataset. Our main contribution is a software implementation of the …

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Spatial And Temporal Characterization Of The Petrified Springs Fault, Central Walker Lane, Nevada: Documenting Middle Miocene Dextral Slip, Andrew Hoxey Jan 2018

Spatial And Temporal Characterization Of The Petrified Springs Fault, Central Walker Lane, Nevada: Documenting Middle Miocene Dextral Slip, Andrew Hoxey

All Master's Theses

The Central Walker Lane, NV is an active dextral shear zone superimposed on the western boundary of the Basin and Range extensional province. Approximately 25% of dextral shear along the Pacific-North American plate boundary accommodated in the Walker Lane, a NW-striking, intracontinental dextral fault system in eastern California- western Nevada. In the Central Walker Lane, shear is accommodated on five major NW- striking faults, one of which is the Petrified Springs fault, with poorly constrained slip magnitudes, slip rates, and initiation ages. We completed new detailed geologic mapping, combined with structural studies, and 40Ar/39Ar geochronology document offset …

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Stream Water And Soil Water Chemistry After The Table Mountain Wildfire, Washington, Usa, Vincent J. Roccanova Jan 2018

Stream Water And Soil Water Chemistry After The Table Mountain Wildfire, Washington, Usa, Vincent J. Roccanova

All Master's Theses

Analyses of major and trace elements, major ions, and nutrient concentrations were made to investigate how stream water and soil water chemistry changed over 16 months following the Table Mountain wildfire. Sites with different burn severity were also compared. The fire occurred in 2012 in Kittitas County, north of Ellensburg, Washington. Samples were collected at severely burned, moderately burned, and unburned field sites from within and adjacent to the wildfire perimeter. Total nitrogen concentrations increased in the second year after the fire in both the severely and moderately burned sites. In contrast, total phosphorus was variable at all three sites …

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Slip Estimation From Real-Time Gps In Cascadia, Jesse Senko Jan 2018

Slip Estimation From Real-Time Gps In Cascadia, Jesse Senko

All Master's Theses

Current systems for rapidly characterizing earthquakes are based on seismic, teleseismic, and Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART) buoy data. These systems have significant limitations that hinder them from making rapid and accurate assessments of large earthquakes used for local tsunami warnings where run-up can occur minutes after the earthquake. Seismic and teleseismic networks saturate around Mw 7.0. Tsunami waves take tens of minutes to reach the buoys, so rapid assessment is impossible. GPS overcomes these limitations for large earthquakes. GPS does not saturate, and the offsets being detected occur very quickly after an earthquake. This thesis develops …

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Internal Composition, Structure, And Hydrological Significance Of Rock Glaciers In The Eastern Cascades, Washington, Adam Riffle Jan 2018

Internal Composition, Structure, And Hydrological Significance Of Rock Glaciers In The Eastern Cascades, Washington, Adam Riffle

All Master's Theses

Low summer river base flow places a strain on natural and economic resources of the Eastern Cascades. A major contributor to stream flow in this region is snow pack which has declined over the past few decades because of a warming climate. In addition, glacial runoff, which contributes significantly to base flow in summer dry periods, will diminish from glacial recession. However, rock glaciers, because their internal ice (i.e., permafrost) is insulated by an outer debris layer, react slowly to climate change, thus acting as sinks for ice and liquid water storage in mountain environments. This study utilized ground penetrating …

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Ecological Effects Of Overwater Structures On Subtidal Kelp, Northern Puget Sound, Washington, E. Jhanek Szypulski Jan 2018

Ecological Effects Of Overwater Structures On Subtidal Kelp, Northern Puget Sound, Washington, E. Jhanek Szypulski

All Master's Theses

There are more than 9,000 overwater structures in the Puget Sound casting an estimated 9 km2 of anthropogenic created shade to the seafloor. Subtidal kelp, over 20 species in total, are abundant in the Sound but little data exists on how they are impacted by these overwater structures. The purpose of this research is to quantify various overwater structures’ impacts on the productivity and distribution of subtidal kelp beds and to create a subtidal kelp monitoring protocol. Three sets of floating docks and paired controls were sampled twice during the summer of 2017 for subtidal kelp distribution, biomass, photosynthetically …

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Evaluating Floodplain Hydrologic Connectivity, Yakima River, Wa, Cristopher Morton Jan 2018

Evaluating Floodplain Hydrologic Connectivity, Yakima River, Wa, Cristopher Morton

All Master's Theses

River side-channels provide habitat for threatened fish, and restoring such habitats is a goal of resource managers. Resource managers use side-channel reconnection projects to increase the quality and quantity of aquatic floodplain habitat, and evaluating the effectiveness of reconnection is a crucial and often neglected part of these projects. The purpose of this research was to collect baseline data to determine if and how floodplain connectivity affects water quality and quantity in side-channel habitat on the Yakima River. This research compared seasonal differences in habitat quality between connected and disconnected channels by evaluating bi-weekly measurements of surface water quality and …

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Water Demand, Adaptive Capacity, And Drought: An Analysis Of The Upper Klamath Basin, Oregon And California, Patricia Snyder Jan 2018

Water Demand, Adaptive Capacity, And Drought: An Analysis Of The Upper Klamath Basin, Oregon And California, Patricia Snyder

All Master's Theses

Freshwater demand and scarcity issues are an issue of global concern, in particular for the American West as global climate models suggest precipitation regime changes and an increase of drought. This research conducts a case-study of the Upper Klamath Basin, located in south-central Oregon and northern California, a microcosm of the arid and semi-arid American West that experienced an economically, socially, and ecologically impactful drought in the early 2000s. Through a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods this research: 1) identifies key stakeholders, their goals and key policies; 2) conducts an adaptive capacity assessment of water management within the basin; …

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The Origin Of Dark Mats At The Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site (45pi408) Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, Sean Stcherbinine Jan 2018

The Origin Of Dark Mats At The Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site (45pi408) Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, Sean Stcherbinine

All Master's Theses

The Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site is a precontact archaeological site located in the upland forest soils of Mount Rainier National Park. Site stratigraphy is complicated, consisting of tephra deposits from mostly known origins that are intercalated with dark sediments of unknown origin, referred to here as dark mats. Precontact occupation has been split previously into two components based on the ambiguous depositional history of the dark mats, notably their unknown parent material, depositional environment, and relationship with adjacent tephra strata. Stratigraphic samples from excavation units, features, and one off-site excavation unit was used to investigate these data gaps. Grain …

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Postglacial Fire, Vegetation, And Environmental Change In The Sinlahekin Wildlife Area, Okanogan County, Washington (Usa), Kevin Haydon Jan 2018

Postglacial Fire, Vegetation, And Environmental Change In The Sinlahekin Wildlife Area, Okanogan County, Washington (Usa), Kevin Haydon

All Master's Theses

Historically fire has played a key disturbance role in many ecosystems of the western United States. One of the most affected landscapes is the dry ponderosa pine-dominated forests of eastern Washington. Over the past decade, these forests have experienced a dramatic increase in large, high-severity wildfires, resulting in significant damage to natural resources, property, and habitat. Public land managers are now faced with the increasing challenge of maintaining these fire-dependent ecosystems in tandem with the projected impacts of future climate change. To do this, land managers need to make informed, adaptive decisions based on what it known in terms of …

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Quantifying Crustal Assimilation In Historical To Recent (1329-2005) Lavas At Mt. Etna, Italy: Insights From Thermodynamic Modeling, Marie Takach Jan 2018

Quantifying Crustal Assimilation In Historical To Recent (1329-2005) Lavas At Mt. Etna, Italy: Insights From Thermodynamic Modeling, Marie Takach

All Master's Theses

The nearly continuous volcanic eruption record at Mt. Etna dating back approximately 700 years provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the geochemical evolution of a highly active volcano. Of particular interest is elucidating the cause of a selective enrichment in alkali elements (K, Rb, Cs) and 87Sr/86Sr. This alkali enrichment trend, which began in the 17th century and accelerated after 1971, was accompanied by an increase in the volume, frequency, and explosivity of eruptions. To explain this enrichment, two major arguments are invoked: (1) crustal contributions (e.g., assimilation of the sedimentary basement), and (2) changes in …

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Advances In The Hyperspectral Imaging Microscope Spectrometer Method, And Application For Measuring The Spectral Reflectance Of Light Absorbing Aerosols From The South Cascades, Colorado Rockies, And Iceland, Melanie Swick Jan 2018

Advances In The Hyperspectral Imaging Microscope Spectrometer Method, And Application For Measuring The Spectral Reflectance Of Light Absorbing Aerosols From The South Cascades, Colorado Rockies, And Iceland, Melanie Swick

All Master's Theses

Snow and glaciers are receding at a global scale. Warming temperatures are often identified as the dominant cause of this decline; however, deposition of light absorbing aerosols (LAA), including black carbon, mineral dust and organics onto snow and glacier surfaces can be an even larger driver of melt in some regions (Skiles et al., 2012). Attempts to partition the relative contribution of different types of LAA to snow and glacier melt has been limited by the uncertainties in the LAA optical properties (Kaspari et al., 2014). A new hyperspectral imaging microscope spectrometer (HIMS) method was recently developed to measure LAA …

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