Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Integration Of Art And Mathematics, Henry Jaakola

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mathematics and art are seemingly unrelated fields, requiring different skills and mindsets. Indeed, these disciplines may be difficult to understand for those not immersed in the field. Through art, math can be more relatable and understandable, and with math, art can be imbued with a different kind of order and structure. This project explores the intersection and integration of math and art, and culminates in a physical interdisciplinary product. Using the Padovan Sequence of numbers as a theoretical basis, two artworks are created with different media and designs, yielding unique results. Through these pieces, the order and beauty of number …

Developing And Validating A Standard Operating Procedure For Quantitative Analysis Using Central Washington University's X-Ray Diffractometer, Katherine Lucas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

X-ray diffraction (XRD) is widely applied in a variety of disciplines to identify crystalline solids in a powdered sample. Recent software advances have made quantitative analysis of samples easier and more accessible, but the quality of the result depends on the sample preparation and data collection procedure. This project focuses on testing methods of sample preparation and XRD data collection and analysis to lay the groundwork for refinement of the existing standard operating procedures at CWU. First, I determined the ball mill grinding time necessary to powder different mineral samples. The addition of hand grinding to ball mill-ground samples produced …

A Contentious Crop: Exploring The Regulatory Debate Of Solar Power Production Facilities In Kittitas County, Washington, Daphne Condon

All Master's Theses

Between 2010 and 2018, Kittitas County, Washington faced an influx of Solar Power Production Facility (SPPF) proposals that challenged its traditional rural land management governance. Despite state support of decarbonized energy, variegated interpretations of project permitting procedures induced heated contentions amongst stakeholders. To explore this, this research constructs a multijurisdictional legal framework for SPPF advancement. It uses these laws to divulge the permitting processes of three case study projects founded in Kittitas County’s renewable energy history: The Wild Horse Wind Facility, the Iron Horse Solar Project, and the Columbia Solar Projects. Through a mixed methodology of project archival analysis and …

Decadal-Scale Effects Of Large Wood Restoration On Channel Morphology And Groundwater Connectivity, Taneum Creek, Wa, Samuel Fixler

All Master's Theses

The importance of large wood (LW) in creating channel complexity is widely recognized; however, few LW projects have been in place long enough to track meaningful channel changes on a decadal timescale. Taneum Creek, located in central Washington, is one of the earliest LW restoration areas (2008) in the Yakima River Basin and the central Cascade Mountains. The flood in 2011, with an estimated discharge of 69 m³/s (2,400-2,800 cfs), provided further channel change by mobilizing LW and channel sediments. Three reaches with similar channel characteristics and LW additions were compared with a control reach without LW additions …

Assessing The Mechanics Of Two Earthquake Clusters In The Basin And Range Province, Jamie Hansen

All Master's Theses

The seismicity in the Basin and Range Province of the western United States often manifests as clusters of earthquakes occurring over brief windows of time, lasting from months to years. Two different earthquake clusters occurring between 2014 and 2018, near Challis, Idaho and northwestern Nevada, were assessed in this study. The seismic activity in the southeastern section of the Challis cluster began with a M5.2 earthquake that was likely the main-shock earthquake in an aftershock sequence. The northwestern section of the Challis cluster does have several potential candidates for a main-shock earthquake, but none have been identified as a start …

Detecting Impacts Of Historic And Undocumented Landslide Tsunamis At High Latitude Sites Using Ndvi, Trent Adams

All Master's Theses

In the last century most of the largest landslide tsunamis on record have occurred in remote regions of the world, which has led to a limited understanding of their impacts on landscapes. The goal of this work is to present a methodology to identify impacts of landslide tsunamis with a technique that does not require field work in extremely remote locations. Although landslide tsunamis have occurred that were not directly witnessed by anyone, evidence of landslide tsunamis can still be observed via satellite. Using multispectral satellite images, we calculated normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to identify tsunami-impacted sites, estimate tsunami …

Wilderness And The Geotag: Exploring The Claim That "Geotagging Ruins Nature" In The Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Wa, Mara Gans

All Master's Theses

This research explores the claim that “geotagging ruins nature” by quantifying and qualifying patterns in geotag use and visitors’ experiences in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, in Washington, United States. Many have raised concerns that geotags increase recreational visitation to public lands, which subsequently contributes to negative resource impacts. Others, however, claim that geotagging has made the outdoors more accessible to less privileged communities and raise concerns that condemning geotags will perpetuate the exclusion of certain groups from outdoor recreation. This debate is studied within federally designated Wilderness, which is legally defined as “untrammeled by man,” a definition rooted in problematic …

Geomorphic History And Preservation Of Archaeologically Significant Areas In The Hanford Reach Of The Columbia River, Washington State, Benjamin Deans

All Master's Theses

Archaeological sites near rivers may be preserved through burial, altered by exposure, or destroyed through erosion. Preserved because of the unusual needs of the Manhattan Project, the Hanford Reach is the only remaining free-flowing reach of the Columbia River and ideal for research into the geomorphic settings of archaeological sites along this river. The 1894 (742,000 cfs [20,900 m³/s]) and 1948 (690,000 cfs [19,000 m³/s]) floods were the largest in the historical record through the reach, but their relationship with geomorphic change and site preservation are less understood. To understand how floods have preserved and destroyed …

Assessing The Effects Of Instream Large Wood On Floodplain Aquifer Recharge And Storage At Indian Creek, Kittitas County, Washington, Usa, Stephen Bartlett

All Master's Theses

Numerous stream restoration projects in the Yakima River Basin in Washington have placed large wood (LW) into tributary channels. One intended effect is to divert water onto floodplains to increase groundwater (GW) recharge and seasonal storage in shallow alluvial aquifers during spring high flows with the intention of releasing GW into streams during the drier summer months. Large wood was emplaced in the Indian Creek tributary of the Teanaway River in Kittitas County, Washington beginning in 2016. Potential changes in the groundwater recharge in the adjacent floodplain before and after the LW installation were investigated through stratigraphic analysis, stream-flow modeling, …

Longitudinal Patterns Of Microplastic Abundance And Potential For Food Web Uptake In The Yakima River, Janell Shah

All Master's Theses

Microplastic (MP) pollutes environments worldwide, but the ecological consequences remain largely unknown. While MP research has historically focused on marine environments, recent work has increasingly investigated rivers as transporters of MP from terrestrial sources to the ocean. Some studies have documented instances of MP consumption in a river food web, but few have investigated multiple consumers at different points along a river continuum. This study enumerated the MP abundance in the water column, biofilm, and four macroinvertebrate families from different functional feeding groups across nine sites spanning 344 kilometers from the headwaters to the mouth of the Yakima River in …

Interpretable Machine Learning For Self-Service High-Risk Decision Making, Charles Recaido

All Master's Theses

This research contributes to interpretable machine learning via visual knowledge discovery in General Line Coordinates (GLC). The concepts of hyperblocks as interpretable dataset units and GLC are combined to create a visual self-service machine learning model. Two variants of GLC known as Dynamic Scaffold Coordinates (DSC) are proposed. DSC1 and DSC2 can map in a lossless manner multiple dataset attributes to a single two-dimensional (X, Y) Cartesian plane using a dynamic scaffolding graph construction algorithm.

Hyperblock analysis is used to determine visually appealing dataset attribute orders and to reduce line occlusion. It is shown that hyperblocks can generalize decision tree …

Determining The Effects Of Chemical Exposure On Hepatocyte Mitochondrial Networks And Cell Viability, Bethany Eaton

All Master's Theses

Mitochondria are cellular organelles that are becoming more recently studied. One of their main functions is the production of energy through cellular respiration, which is crucial to cell life. However, they are also associated with numerous disease states. It is hypothesized that reactive oxygen species (ROS), largely produced in mitochondria, induce oxidative stress and affect mitochondrial morphology along with cell viability. This study compares chemical exposure of menadione, an ROS producer, and phthalates (plasticizers) on two mouse hepatocyte cell lines to determine the effects they have on mitochondrial morphology and cell viability. Three experiments were performed to analyze the effects …

Establishing The Relative Composition Of Functionalized Thiols In Mixed Ligand Gold Nanoparticles By 1h-Nmr Spectroscopy, Matthias Carroll

All Master's Theses

Functionalized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are of interest for their optical and electrical properties, specifically the surface plasmon resonance phenomenon and potential applications for medicine and nano-circuitry. In this study, the ligand composition of small (~5 nm diameter) thiol functionalized AuNPs with mixed ligand monolayers was investigated to better understand how the molar feed ratio of ligands used during their synthesis influences the composition of ligands on the particle’s surface. The system under study was a combination of two ω-functionalized thiols, mercapto ethoxy ethoxy ethanol (MEEE) and mercapto pentyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (MPTMA). UV/Visible spectrophotometry, dynamic light scattering, and electron …

Binding Interactions Between Mixed-Monlayer Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles (Aunps) And The Serum Protein Albumin, Jennifer Hanigan-Diebel

All Master's Theses

This study investigated the protein adsorption interactions of bovine serum albumin (BSA) with three different functionalized 5 nm gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in order to determine the binding affinity and total amount of protein adsorbed to each AuNP surface chemistry. AuNPs were synthesized using two different capping agents to display three different surface chemistries: a neutral ω-functionalized thiol ligand (mercapto-ethoxy-ethoxy-ethanol, MEEE), a thiol ligand that is negatively charged at pH 7.4 (mercaptohexanoic acid, MHA), and a mixture of the two ligands (mixed-ligand AuNPs). The interactions of this library of AuNPs with bovine serum albumin (BSA) were investigated using UV-visible absorbance spectroscopy, …

The Effects Of Channel Incision And Land Use On Surface-Water/Groundwater Interactions In The Teanaway River Basin, Washington, Usa, Joseph Petralia

All Master's Theses

The Teanaway River basin, a major tributary to the Yakima River, is host to several restoration projects with the intention of returning the river channel to a more natural state and improving riparian habitat. These projects may also increase aquifer storage and potentially increase summertime streamflows. This study of the Teanaway Valley Family Farm, an 88-hectare parcel on the main-stem Teanaway River that was recently purchased by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, provides hydrogeologic data that will inform these restoration projects. Following the purchase of this land, ten wells were installed within and slightly above the floodplain in order …