Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Judy Reservoir Monitoring Project 2013 Final Report, Robin A. Matthews, Joan Vandersypen

Judy Reservoir

The purpose of this study was to identify and count the phytoplankton and measure chlorophyll, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus levels in water samples collected from Judy Reservoir. Water quality and algal data have been collected on a weekly basis since October 2006; annual reports have been sent to the Skagit Public Utility District No. 1 in 2007, 2008, 2010 (January and December), 2011, and 2012. This project ended in 2013; the final chemistry sample was collected May 2, 2013 and the final algae sample was collected November 6, 2013.

Melt Inclusion Evidence For Magma Evolution At Mutnovsky Volcano, Kamchatka, K. Robertson, A. Simon, T. Pettke, Sean R. Mulcahy, E. Smith, O. Selyangin, A. Kiryukhin, J. D. Walker

Geology Faculty Publications

Mutnovsky Volcano, located in Kamchatka, Russia, is a young volcano that has formed a series of four overlapping stratocones over its approximately 80 ka history. Erupted products at Mutnovsky range in composition from basalts to dacites; basalts are the most common. In this study, melt inclusions from representative samples of all erupted compositions from all four eruptive centers were analyzed to investigate the causes of the compositional heterogeneity, melt evolution, and pre-eruptive magma dynamics. Melt inclusions from Mutnovsky were sampled in olivine, plagioclase, orthopyroxene, and clinopyroxene. The melt inclusion data represent a wide range of melt compositions, from basalt through …

Reed Lake 2013 Aquatic Plant Survey, Samantha Merrick, Robin A. Matthews, Joan Vandersypen

Reed Lake

The main objective of this project was to collect and identify aquatic plants in Reed Lake, a small, shallow lake in Whatcom County. The project was undertaken with the assistance of volunteers from the Glenhaven Lakes community (Figure 1). Residents of the Glenhaven community have expressed concerns about the effects that aquatic plants are having on recreation in the lake. This report included maps showing the types of plants that were collected in the lake Figures 2–10 and estimated plant densities (Figures 11–13), with a short discussion of methods that might be useful for reducing aquatic plant densities in the …

Compact Bilinear Operators And Commutators, Árpád Bényi, Rodolfo H. (Rodolfo Humberto) Torres

Mathematics Faculty Publications

A notion of compactness in the bilinear setting is explored. Moreover, commutators of bilinear Calderon-Zygmund operators and multiplication by functions in a certain subspace of the space of functions of bounded mean oscillations are shown to be compact.

The Planet, 2013, Fall, Mikey Jane Moran, Huxley College Of The Environment, Western Washington University

The Planet

No abstract provided.

Percolation In The Secrecy Graph, Amites Sarkar, Martin Haenggi

Mathematics Faculty Publications

The secrecy graph is a random geometric graph which is intended to model the connectivity of wireless networks under secrecy constraints. Directed edges in the graph are present whenever a node can talk to another node securely in the presence of eavesdroppers, which, in the model, is determined solely by the locations of the nodes and eavesdroppers. In the case of infinite networks, a critical parameter is the maximum density of eavesdroppers that can be accommodated while still guaranteeing an infinite component in the network, i.e., the percolation threshold. We focus on the case where the locations of the …

Cold Gas In The Inner Regions Of Intermediate Redshift Clusters, P. Jablonka, F. Combes, Kenneth J. Rines, R. Finn, T. Welch

Physics & Astronomy

Determining the nature and modes of star formation at galactic scales requires an understanding of the relationship between the gas content of a galaxy and its star formation rate. Remarkable progress has been made in understanding the conversion mechanisms in field galaxies, but the cold and dense gas fueling the star formation in galaxies inside clusters has been investigated much less often. We present the first CO observations of luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) inside the virial radii of two intermediate redshift clusters, CL1416+4446 (z = 0.397) and CL0926+1242 (z = 0.489). We detect three galaxies at high significance …

Birch Bay Village Lakes 2013 Final Report, Robin A. Matthews, Joan Vandersypen

Birch Bay/Village Lakes

The Institute for Watershed Studies was contracted by the Birch Bay Village Lakes Committee to continue water testing at two sites in Kwan Lake and two sites in Thunderbird Lake (Figure 1, page 4). The sampling effort began in August 2007, and samples have been collected approximately 2–4 times each year through August 2013. This report provides an update to earlier data reports submitted to the Birch Bay Village Lakes Committee.

Comparing Forest Measurements From Tree Rings And A Space-Based Index Of Vegetation Activity In Siberia, Andrew Godard Bunn, Malcolm Kenneth Hughes, Alexander V. Kirdyanov, Mark Losleben, Vladimir V. Shishov, Logan T. Berner, Alexander Oltchev, E. A. (Evgeniĭ Aleksandrovich) Vaganov

Environmental Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Different methods have been developed for measuring carbon stocks and fluxes in the northern high latitudes, ranging from intensively measured small plots to space-based methods that use reflectance data to drive production efficiency models. The field of dendroecology has used samples of tree growth from radial increments to quantify long-term variability in ecosystem productivity, but these have very limited spatial domains. Since the cambium material in tree cores is itself a product of photosynthesis in the canopy, it would be ideal to link these two approaches. We examine the associations between the normalized differenced vegetationindex (NDVI) and tree growth using …

Fish And Shellfish Consumption: Traditions, Regulations, And A Cleaner Environment In The Us Pacific Northwest, Jennifer Stiles, Ruth M. Sofield

Environmental Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

When discussing the benefits of fish consumption, we typically focus on the health benefits such as Omega‐3 fatty acids and their implications for heart health. However, nonhealth related benefits of fish consumption are important to consider. With Washington State's broad coastline, fish consumption is abundant and plays an integral role in the traditions of the Native Americans in the state. Fish and shellfish are an important part of the daily diet. There is also spiritual significance with traditions that include the “First Salmon Ceremony,” where the first salmon of the year is honored to ensure that its spirit is released …

Characterization And Solution Structure Of The Factor Viii C2 Domain In A Ternary Complex With Classical And Non-Classical Inhibitor Antibodies, P. Clint Spiegel, Justin D. Walter, Rachel Werther, Maria S. Polozova, Julie Pohlman, John F. Healey, Shannon L. Meeks, Pete Lollar

Chemistry Faculty and Staff Publications

The most significant complication for patients with severe cases of congenital or acquired hemophilia A is the development of inhibitor antibodies against coagulation factor VIII (fVIII). The C2 domain of fVIII is a significant antigenic target of anti-fVIII antibodies. Here, we have utilized small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and biochemical techniques to characterize interactions between two different classes of anti-C2 domain inhibitor antibodies and the isolated C2 domain. Multiple assays indicated that antibodies 3E6 and G99 bind independently to the fVIII C2 domain and can form a stable ternary complex. SAXS-derived numerical estimates of dimensional parameters for all studied complexes …

Measuring The Ultimate Halo Mass Of Galaxy Clusters: Redshifts And Mass Profiles From The Hectospec Cluster Survey (Hecs), Kenneth J. Rines

Physics & Astronomy

The infall regions of galaxy clusters represent the largest gravitationally bound structures in a LambdaCDM universe. Measuring cluster mass profiles into the infall regions provides an estimate of the ultimate mass of these halos. We use the caustic technique to measure cluster mass profiles from galaxy redshifts obtained with the Hectospec Cluster Survey (HeCS), an extensive spectroscopic survey of galaxy clusters with MMT/Hectospec. We survey 58 clusters selected by X-ray flux at 0.1 < z < 0.3. The survey includes 22,680 unique MMT/Hectospec redshifts for individual galaxies; 10,145 of these galaxies are cluster members. For each cluster, we acquired high signal-to-noise spectra for ~200 cluster members and a comparable number of foreground/background galaxies. The cluster members trace out infall patterns around the clusters. The members define a very narrow red sequence. We demonstrate that the determination of velocity dispersion is insensitive to the inclusion of bluer members (a small fraction of the cluster population). We apply the caustic technique to define membership and estimate the mass profiles to large radii. The ultimate halo mass of clusters (the mass that remains bound in the far future of a LambdaCDM universe) is on average (1.99 ± 0.11)M ₂₀₀, a new observational cosmological test in essential agreement with simulations. Summed profiles binned in M ₂₀₀ and in L_X demonstrate that the predicted Navarro-Frenk-White …

The Planet, 2013, Spring, James Rogers, Huxley College Of The Environment, Western Washington University

The Planet

No abstract provided.

Toxicity Of Herbicide Mixtures: Atrazine And Roundup® Toxicity To Daphnia Magna, Jennifer A. Stiles

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Herbicide use in agricultural systems often causes runoff to contain chemical mixtures that may have greater deleterious effects on non-target organisms than the same chemicals would have when found alone. Little information is known about how some of these chemicals act in mixtures, though many of their individual effects have been described. It is important to understand what effects these chemical mixtures have to identify protective application levels. In this experiment, a 21-day chronic Daphnia magna toxicity test was conducted using an atrazine and Roundup® mixture. Five concentrations of atrazine were tested (0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, 2.0mg/L). The mixture treatments …

A Novel Depletion Technique For Studying The Role Of Protein L12 In The Activation Of Ribosome-Dependent Gtpases, Michelle E. Wuerth

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The ribosome is a complex macromolecular machine that is responsible for the synthesis of proteins from a nucleic acid template. This process is largely regulated by various protein translation factors, many of which are GTPases. Ribosome-dependent GTPase activity has been observed to be coincident with the presence of ribosomal protein L12. Of current interest is to understand how L12 interacts with the GTPase factors on the 705 ribosome. A key to the investigation of these interactions is to produce ribosomes fully depleted of L12 for comparisons of factor activity and binding in the presence and absence of this protein. Here, …

Lake Whatcom Monitoring Project 2011/2012 Report, Robin A. Matthews, Michael Hilles, Joan Vandersypen, Robert J. Mitchell, Geoffrey B. Matthews

Lake Whatcom Annual Reports

This report is part of an on-going series of annual reports and special project reports that document the Lake Whatcom monitoring program. This work is conducted by the Institute for Watershed Studies and other departments at Western Washington University.

The major objective of this program is to provide long-term baseline water quality monitoring in Lake Whatcom and selected tributaries. Each section contains brief explanations about the water quality data, along with discussions of patterns observed in Lake Whatcom.

Comprehensive Analysis Of Escape-Cone Losses From Luminescent Waveguides, Stephen Mcdowall, Tristan Butler, Edward Bain, Kelsey Scharnhorst, David L. Patrick

David L. Patrick

Luminescent waveguides (LWs) occur in a wide range of applications, from solar concentrators to doped fiber amplifiers. Here we report a comprehensive analysis of escape-cone losses in LWs, which are losses associated with internal rays making an angle less than the critical angle with a waveguide surface. For applications such as luminescent solar concentrators, escape-cone losses often dominate all others. A statistical treatment of escape-cone losses is given accounting for photoselection, photon polarization, and the Fresnel relations, and the model is used to analyze light absorption and propagation in waveguides with isotropic and orientationally aligned luminophores. The results are then …

Comprehensive Analysis Of Escape-Cone Losses From Luminescent Waveguides, Stephen R. Mcdowall, Tristan Butler, Edward Bain, Kelsey Scharnhorst, David L. Patrick

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Luminescent waveguides (LWs) occur in a wide range of applications, from solar concentrators to doped fiber amplifiers. Here we report a comprehensive analysis of escape-cone losses in LWs, which are losses associated with internal rays making an angle less than the critical angle with a waveguide surface. For applications such as luminescent solar concentrators, escape-cone losses often dominate all others. A statistical treatment of escape-cone losses is given accounting for photoselection, photon polarization, and the Fresnel relations, and the model is used to analyze light absorption and propagation in waveguides with isotropic and orientationally aligned luminophores. The results are then …

Measuring The Mass Distribution In Galaxy Clusters, Margaret J. Geller, Antonaldo Diaferio, Kenneth J. Rines, Ana Laura Serra

Physics & Astronomy

Cluster mass profiles are tests of models of structure formation. Only two current observational methods of determining the mass profile, gravitational lensing, and the caustic technique are independent of the assumption of dynamical equilibrium. Both techniques enable the determination of the extended mass profile at radii beyond the virial radius. For 19 clusters, we compare the mass profile based on the caustic technique with weak lensing measurements taken from the literature. This comparison offers a test of systematic issues in both techniques. Around the virial radius, the two methods of mass estimation agree to within ~30%, consistent with the expected …

The Very Short Period M Dwarf Binary Sdss J001641–000925, James R. A. Davenport, Andrew C. Becker, Andrew A. West, John J. Bochanski, Suzanne L. Hawley, Jon Holtzman, Heather C. Gunning, Eric J. Hilton, Ferah A. Munshi, Meagan Albright

Physics & Astronomy

We present follow-up observations and analysis of the recently discovered short period low-mass eclipsing binary, SDSS J001641–000925. With an orbital period of 0.19856 days, this system has one of the shortest known periods for an M dwarf binary system. Medium-resolution spectroscopy and multi-band photometry for the system are presented. Markov Chain Monte Carlo modeling of the light curves and radial velocities yields estimated masses for the stars of M ₁ = 0.54 ± 0.07 M _☉ and M ₂ = 0.34 ± 0.04 M _☉, and radii of R ₁ = 0.68 ± 0.03 R _☉ and R _{2 …}

American Chestnut's Role In The Ecological Restoration Of Coal-Mined Landscapes, Jenise Bauman, Caleb Cochran, Brian C. Murphy, Carolyn H. Keiffer

College of the Environment on the Peninsulas Publications

The American chestnut’s fast growth rate, early nut production, and quality of timber make it a valuable tree for use in coal mine restoration projects (Figure 1). This species tolerates a wide range of ecological conditions, including dry soils and low pH, which are typical of some sites previously mined for coal. Experimental planting methods are currently being studied to determine protocols most conducive for establishing chestnut trees on these sites. The Forestry Reclamation Approach (FRA) proposed by the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) recommends the selection of proper soil substrate, a deep rooting zone, appropriate herbaceous vegetation, and the …

Survey For The Presence Of Phytophthora Cinnamomi On Reclaimed Mined Lands In Ohio Chosen For Restoration Of The American Chestnut, Shiv Hiremath, Kirsten J. Lehtoma, Jenise Bauman

College of the Environment on the Peninsulas Publications

We have been planting blight resistant American chestnut seedlings on reclaimed coal mined areas in Southeastern Ohio, which was once within the natural range of the American chestnut. Towards the goal of restoring the American chestnut, we are testing suitable sites that can aid survival, growth and establishment of planted seedlings pre-inoculated with ectomycorrhizal fungi. Prior to the arrival of the chestnut blight fungus, pathogens of the genus Phytophthora were introduced in the USA that were responsible for the “ink disease” or “root-rot” resulting in wide-spread death of chestnut trees in southern states. Although these pathogens were not observed elsewhere, …

Soil Preparation Methods Promoting Ectomycorrhizal Colonization And American Chestnut (Castanea Dentata) Establishment In Coal Mine Restoration, Jenise Bauman

Jenise M. Bauman

No abstract provided.

A Generalization Of Routh's Triangle Theorem, Árpád Bényi, Branko Ćurgus

Árpád Bényi

No abstract provided.

Concrete Shroud, Jake Reller, Mariah Tate Klemens

Occam's Razor

Concrete shroud is an exhibition originating from a dialogue between the two artists, culminating in a series of lectures written by Mariah Tate Klemens and Jake Reller.

Community, Culture And Identity In An Age Of Globalization, Katie Wiggins

Occam's Razor

As we move further into the age of globalization, we are seeing changes not only at a global level but at individual and communal levels; changes that we cannot wholly identify but that we recognize in ourselves. We are adapting to a global world, one that is affecting our identity and culture and, as we attempt to hold on to this identity and still converse with a larger world, we ultimately are forced to reshape our identities. Some may wonder what this will mean for the future and to what extent it affects us as individuals and communities. To answer …

Occam's Razor Vol. 3 - Full (2013)

Occam's Razor

No abstract provided.

On A Class Of Bilinear Pseudodifferential Operators, Árpád Bényi, Tadahiro Oh

Mathematics Faculty Publications

We provide a direct proof for the boundedness of pseudodifferential operators with symbols in the bilinear Hörmander class BS₁⁰,_ƍ, 0 ≤ ƍ

On The Hörmander Classes Of Bilinear Pseudodifferential Operators, Ii, Árpád Bényi, Frederic Bernicot, Diego Maldonado, Rodolfo H. (Rodolfo Humberto) Torres, Virginia Naibo

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Boundedness properties for pseudodifferential operators with symbols in the bilinear Hörmander classes of sufficiently negative order are proved. The results are obtained in the scale of Lebesgue spaces, and in some cases, end-point estimates involving weak-type spaces and BMO are provided as well. From the Lebesgue space estimates, Sobolev ones are then easily obtained using functional calculus and interpolation. In addition, it is shown that, in contrast with the linear case, operators associated with symbols of order zero may fail to be bounded on products of Lebesgue spaces.

The Sobolev Inequality On The Torus Revisited, Árpád Bényi, Tadahiro Oh

Mathematics Faculty Publications

We revisit the Sobolev inequality for periodic functions on the d-dimensional torus. We provide an elementary Fourier analytic proof of this inequality which highlights both the similarities and differences between the periodic setting and the classical d-dimensional Euclidean one.