Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Cards With Class: Formalizing A Simplified Collectible Card Game, Dan Ha

University Honors Theses

Collectible card games (CCGs) have been a wildly popular game genre since the release of Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering. These games revolve around their thousands of cards and the hundreds of thousands of interactions they can create with their many effects. For designers, it is an incredibly demanding task to ensure that every single card works properly and that each card's text unambiguously conveys its intended behavior in all cases. The task only grows more difficult over time as the number of cards in the game grows and card effects become more complex or experimental. If the …

Scale-Dependent Effects Of Urban Canopy Cover, Canopy Volume, And Impervious Surfaces On Near Surface Air Temperature In Portland, Or, Carson Ralls

Geography Masters Research Papers

Cities are significantly warmer than their surrounding rural environments. Known as the ‘urban heat island effect’, it can affect the health of urban residents and lead to increased energy use. Although this effect is extensively researched, less is known about how landscape characteristics within cities affect local temperature variation. With a warming climate and the need for heat mitigation strategies becoming more urgent, having a finer detailed understanding of the effects on temperature is critical to guide proper management policies. This study examined how tree canopy cover, canopy volume, and impervious surface cover affect daytime near surface air temperature, and …

The Institutional Challenges Of A Quantified Self Study: An Attempt To Ascertain How Data Collected From A Mobile Device Can Be An Indicator Of Personal Mental Health Over Time, Julian Lazaras

University Honors Theses

The adoption of an application of new technology always comes with a bias, this is never more true for the case of human behavioral analytics within higher education. While movements such as the quantified self movement make strides to reinterpret the realm of data analytics, psychology, and computer science, there are inevitably limitations to the adoption and application of such approaches within the standard realm of research. Herein is presented a case where an effort to evaluate the prospect of use of mobile phone data as secondary indicators of personal mental health through the lens of data analysis was put …

Complete Genome Sequence Of Strain Jm503a, A Genetically Tractable Dental Abscess Clinical Isolate, Dustin L. Higashi, Anh Nguyen, Hua Qin, Christina Borland, Elizabeth A. Palmer, Nicolas Biais, Jens Kreth, Justin Merritt

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Parvimonas micra is a pathobiont of humans that is often found in abundance at sites of mucosal inflammation as well as within malignant tumors. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of P. micra strain JM503A, which is a genetically tractable clinical isolate derived from a human odontogenic abscess specimen.

Artificial Intelligence As The Next Front In The Class War, Christopher Hill

Dissertations and Theses

For many years, artificial intelligence has been confined to the realm of science fiction, and while the technology has been in development, predicting the effects AI will have on our society has been a challenging endeavor. The release of ChatGPT in 2022, the subsequent mass adoption of the AI chatbot, and the response by other private firms in the field announced AI's permanent entrance into the public sphere. These recent strides made in the field of artificial intelligence reveal that the pace of technological development has outstripped the rate at which we are able to politically examine and understand these …

Yang-Baxter Equations, David Lovitz

Dissertations and Theses

Multiple equations in math, physics, quantum information, and elsewhere are referred to as "the" Yang-Baxter equation, in spite of being a broad family of equations. Most of the equations are nonlinear matrix equations, where the unknown variable is a matrix. This is the case for the so called braided, algebraic, and generalized forms of "the" equation, which are the primary focus of this dissertation. Finding solutions to the various forms of these equations has been the subject of much research. The equations in all their forms are largely considered intractable in high dimensions, and only in dimension 2 have the …

An Index Of Biotic Integrity For Macroinvertebrate Stream Bioassessment Conducted By Community Scientists, Patrick M. Edwards, Daniel Bedell, Shannon Hubler, Chad A. Larson, Kate H. Macneale, Elisa Mickelson, Chris Prescott, Elinore Webb, Jo Wilhelm

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Community science bioassessment has great potential to inform comprehensive stream management plans, but regional analytical tools are needed to evaluate macroinvertebrate data collected through community science programs. To this end, we modified a pre-existing professional index of biotic integrity (IBI) to create a community science IBI (CS-IBI), designed for stream macroinvertebrate data collected by community scientists with minimal training. We used data collected by both professional and community scientists to develop, calibrate, and validate the CS-IBI at 76 streamsites in the Puget Lowland andWillamette Valley ecoregions of the PacificNorthwest in theUnited States. Community science data were taxonomically coarser andmore variable …

The Cultivation Of Ulva Lactuca In Jambiani, Zanzibar: A Case Study, Jazmine R. Compton

Anthós

This case study explores the feasibility of Ulva lactuca cultivation in Jambiani, Zanzibar, Tanzania. The seaweed farming industry in Zanzibar is facing challenges related to climate change that have resulted in increased rates of crop failure and decreased production. Cultivation of the green algae Ulva lactuca has been suggested as a potential solution due to its tolerance to extreme environmental conditions. In collaboration with Marine Cultures, this project has tested different cultivation methods typically used for red algae (Rhodophyta) species. Experimental plots of Ulva lactuca were established in Jambiani, Zanzibar using the floating line and off- bottom methods. At the …

Lang2views Capstone: The Importance Of A Conscientious Team Lead, Joseph Wornath

University Honors Theses

This review essay reflects the Lang2views capstone project from the perspective of a team lead. The Lang2views capstone project was a web-based user interface designed to simplify how the Lang2views corporation localizes videos into other languages for their clients. Our capstone group was split into three subgroups: front-end, back-end, and DevOps. The strategy for completing the project went through a major change midway through development wherein we changed our software development methodology from a more rigid Waterfall-type approach to a more flexible Agile methodology. Because of this, many of the initially planned features had to be reevaluated as out of …

Enhancing Robustness Of Machine Learning Models Against Adversarial Attacks, Ronak Guliani

University Honors Theses

Machine learning models are integral for numerous applications, but they remain increasingly vulnerable to adversarial attacks. These attacks involve subtle manipulation of input data to deceive models, presenting a critical threat to their dependability and security. This thesis addresses the need for strengthening these models against such adversarial attacks. Prior research has primarily focused on identifying specific types of adversarial attacks on a limited range of ML algorithms. However, there is a gap in the evaluation of model resilience across algorithms and in the development of effective defense mechanisms. To bridge this gap, this work adopts a two-phase approach. First, …

Moss Biomonitoring Of Lead Emissions From Hillsboro Airport, Daria Kolpakov

University Honors Theses

The objective of this experiment was to use biomonitoring as a method to determine lead concentration levels around Hillsboro Airport in Hillsboro, Oregon. Twenty-two samples were collected within a 2 km radius around Hillsboro Airport using a randomized sampling strategy. The concentrations of lead within the samples were determined using ICP-MS. The average lead concentration was (2.8 ± 5.0) mg/kg with a peak value of 21.6 mg/kg 0.57 km from Hillsboro Airport. As the average lead concentration was substantially skewed, Hillsboro Airport is likely to be the source of the lead increase.

Pt-Symmetry And Eigenmodes, Tamara Gratcheva

University Honors Theses

Spectra of systems with balanced gain and loss, described by Hamiltonians with parity and time-reversal (PT) symmetry is a rich area of research. This work studies by means of numerical techniques, how eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of a Schrodinger operator change as a gain-loss parameter changes. Two cases on a disk with zero boundary conditions are considered. In the first case, within the enclosing disk, we place a parity (P) symmetric configuration of three smaller disks containing gain and loss media, which does not have PT-symmetry. In the second case, we study a PT-symmetric configuration …

Remediating History: A Review Of Restoration For Creeks Polluted From Historical Mining Sites, With The Red Boy Mine As A Primary Case Study, Kara Atiyeh

University Honors Theses

I conducted a literature review to examine the key aspects of restoring watersheds affected by pollution from historical mining. This review is then applied to a case study discussion of the Red Boy Mine and Clear Creek remediation project in Granite, Oregon. The goal of this discussion is to explore how an analysis of site conditions along with current literature on management practices can help guide these projects. Thousands of abandoned hard rock mines remain throughout the country, and many pose serious environmental health effects. Heavy metals like cadmium, nickel, and copper are brought to the surface from mining activity, …

The Cascading Effects Of Database Design, Liam Mccracken

University Honors Theses

This paper details how a relational database influenced the design of the rest of a software project. The software project in question is WonderTix, an open-source ticketing and donation platform for the use of Portland Playhouse under continuous development by teams of Portland State students as their computer science capstone project. The paper, a capstone review thesis, examines WonderTix as an instantiation of the Model-View-Controller design pattern, noting how the model, a relational database based on the SQL standard, influenced the design of the view and controller components. This influence is explored from three angles. First, when the implementation of …

Matching The Scales Of Planning And Environmental Risk: An Evaluation Of Community Wildfire Protection Plans In The Western Us, Matthew Hamilton, Cody Evers, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Alan Ager

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Theory predicts that effective environmental governance requires that the scales of management account for the scales of environmental processes. A good example is community wildfire protection planning. Plan boundaries that are too narrowly defined may miss sources of wildfire risk originating at larger geographic scales whereas boundaries that are too broadly defined dilute resources. Although the concept of scale (mis)matches is widely discussed in literature on risk mitigation as well as environmental governance more generally, rarely has the concept been rigorously quantified. We introduce methods to address this limitation, and we apply our approach to assess scale matching among Community …

On Coresets For Fair Clustering In Metric And Euclidean Spaces And Their Applications, Sayan Bandyapadhyay, Fedor V. Fomin, Kirill Simonov

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fair clustering is a constrained clustering problem where we need to partition a set of colored points. The fraction of points of each color in every cluster should be more or less equal to the fraction of points of this color in the dataset. The problem was recently introduced by Chierichetti et al. (2017) [1]. We propose a new construction of coresets for fair clustering for Euclidean and general metrics based on random sampling. For the Euclidean space Rd, we provide the first coreset whose size does not depend exponentially on the dimension d. The question of whether such constructions …

Auditory Ace Mobile Application Capstone Review, Layla Smith

University Honors Theses

This paper describes the development process and outcomes of my 2023-2024 Capstone Project, Auditory Ace, a self-directed auditory training mobile application for individuals with cochlear implants. Recognizing the limitations of current market offerings, Dr. Timothy Anderson created a Capstone project proposal to develop an accessible auditory training mobile application. The Capstone team that took on this proposal consisted of Darya Haines, Dustin Huynh, Jordan Nguyen, Nihar Koppolu, Scott Thorkelson, Sienna Day, and myself, Layla Smith. This paper is structured to follow the Agile software development methodology, which we used to develop Auditory Ace, reviewing in detail every major choice we …

Development Of A Two-Photon Imaging System, Jesseca Hollenbaugh

University Honors Theses

The objective of this project was to convert a Sarastro 2000 confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) into a system capable of far-field two-photon excitation (TPE) imaging for the use of the PSU Biology department. TPE microscopy operates on the ability of fluorophores to accept two photons each with half the energy of a desired transition in a single quantum event via a virtual energy state and then emit a higher energy photon upon relaxation. This is preferable to single-photon excitation (SPE) imaging due to lower photon imaging, causing less damage to delicate biological samples, as well as the inherent localization …

Virtual Field Environments Capstone Software Review, Ashton Sawyer

University Honors Theses

This is a review of the Virtual Field Environments computer science capstone project, sponsored by geology professor Rick Hugo. The tool aims to create and render VFEs, interactable 360° environments hosted on the web that are used as virtual field trips for K-12 students. This essay discusses the development process, including understanding requirements, tool and technology selection, problem-solving, and decision-making strategies. It also highlights the differences between the capstone and the other core computer science courses, and how those differences help to prepare students for the workforce. The project was completed over the course of twenty weeks by a team …

Automatic Measurement Of Dialogue Engagingness In Multilingual Settings, Amila Ferron

Dissertations and Theses

Expansive use of large language models (LLMs) as dialogue systems brings increased importance to the evaluation of the responses they generate. Although evaluation of qualities such as coherence and fluency are readily possible with well-established automatic metrics, engagingness is often measured with human evaluation -- a process that can be costly and slows the pace of development. Existing automatic metrics for engagingness have low to moderate correlation with human annotations, evaluate the response without the conversation history, are complicated to implement, or are designed for a specific dataset. Moreover, they have been tested exclusively on English conversations. Given that dialogue …

Debris Fan Produced By Failure Of Canyon-Blocking Pyroclastic Flows, Michael L. Cummings

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ash-rich pyroclastic flows from the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Mazama (~7700 yr. B. P.), Cascade volcanic arc, Oregon, entered and blocked the narrow, bedrock-lined canyon of the Williamson River approximately 35 to 44 km from the source volcano. The blockage impounded a body of water which then released producing four stratigraphic units in the downstream debris fan. The four stratigraphic units are a boulder core comprised of locally sourced bedrock boulders and three sand-rich units including a fine-grained sand unit, a sandy pumice gravel (±basalt/hydrovolcanic tuff) unit, and a pumice pebble-bearing, crystal-rich sand unit. Hand-drilled auger holes up to ~1.6 …

Valid Confidence Intervals For Μ,Σ When There Is Only One Observation Available, Anirban Dasgupta, Stephen Portnoy

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portnoy (2019) considered the problem of constructing an optimal confidence interval for the mean based on a single observation X ∼ N(µ, σ2). Here we extend this result to obtaining 1-sample confidence intervals for σ and to cases of symmetric unimodal distributions and of distributions with compact support. Finally, we extend the multivariate result in Portnoy (2019) to allow a sample of size m from a multivariate normal distribution where m may be less than the dimension.

A Review Of The Toxicity Of Ingredients In E-Cigarettes, Including Those Ingredients Having The Fda's "Generally Recognized As Safe (Gras)" Regulatory Status For Use In Food., Nada O F Kassem, Robert M. Strongin, Andrea M. Stroup, Marielle C. Brinkman, Ahmad El-Hellani, Hanno C. Erythropel, Arash Etemadi, Vernat Exil, Maciej L. Goniewicz, Noura O. Kassem, Theodore P. Klupinski, Sandy Liles, Thivanka Muthumalage, Alexandra Noël, David H. Peyton, Qixin Wang, Multiple Additional Authors

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Some firms and marketers of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes; a type of electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS)) and refill liquids (e-liquids) have made claims about the safety of ingredients used in their products based on the term "GRAS or Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS). However, GRAS is a provision within the definition of a food additive under section 201(s) (21 U.S.C. 321(s)) of the U.S. Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act). Food additives and GRAS substances are by the FD&C Act definition intended for use in food, thus safety is based on oral consumption; the term GRAS cannot serve …

The Lewis Acidity Of Imidazole-Derived Diaryliodonium Zwitterions, Cyrus Rose

University Honors Theses

Diaryliodonium salts can be used as effective aryl-transfer agents in reactions to form novel molecules with diverse applications including pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals without using harsh reaction conditions and transition metal reagents. In recent years, interest in the applications of the Lewis acidity of iodonium ion catalysts has increased. Despite this, the quantification of the Lewis acidities of diaryliodonium salts are scarce. Even rarer, there has not been much study into the Lewis acidities of zwitterionic diaryliodonium salts. For zwitterions, there is no counter anion that would come into consideration in regard to its Lewis acidity. To expand the understanding of …

Multi-Scale Variability Of Heavy Metals In A Snowpack In The Triple Divide Region Of The Western United States, Kelsey Hefner

University Honors Theses

Natural and anthropogenically sourced particulates are deposited from the atmosphere to landscapes via dry and wet deposition, making frozen winter snowpack a natural archive of atmospheric elemental composition. In the Western United States, wildfires are increasing in extent, duration, and severity. Severe fires remove forest canopy, impacting how atmospheric elements are dispersed and stored across snow-dominated watersheds. We evaluated concentrations of twelve elements in 397 winter snow core samples from a chronosequence of eight forests that burned with mixed severity from 2000 to 2018 in the Triple Divide region of Western Wyoming, the headwaters of the Columbia, Colorado, and Missouri …

Mantle Sources And Geochemical Evolution Of The Picture Gorge Basalt, Columbia River Basalt Group, Emily B. Cahoon, Martin J. Streck, Richard W. Carlson, Ilya N. Bindeman

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) is the youngest continental flood basalt province, proposed to be sourced from the deep-seated plume that currently resides underneath Yellowstone National Park. If so, the earliest erupted basalts from this province, such as those in the Picture Gorge Basalt (PGB), aid in understanding and modeling plume impingement and the subsequent evolution of basaltic volcanism. Using geochemical and isotopic data, this study explores potential mantle sources and magma evolution of the PGB. Long known geochemical signatures of the PGB include overall large ion lithophile element (LILE) enrichment and relative depletion of high field strength elements …

Extended Producer Responsibility: Successes, Failures, And The Future Of Oregon Recycling, Zoe Vandal

University Honors Theses

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a waste management program used globally to improve the recovery, recycling, and management of solid waste materials. There are three types of EPR programs defined by their target materials: electronic and electrical waste (WEEE) EPR, hazardous waste EPR, and packaging EPR. Europe has implemented all three types with relative success. The US has implemented WEEE EPR and hazardous waste EPR and is currently in the process of implementing packaging EPR on a state scale in Oregon, California, Colorado, Maine, and Maryland with 10 more bills being introduced in 2024 alone. Oregon's EPR program will be …

Design And Test Of Asynchronous Systems Using The Link And Joint Model, Ebelechukwu Esimai

Dissertations and Theses

Asynchronous circuits offer numerous advantages, including low energy consumption and good composability and scalability. However, they remain meagerly adopted in the mainstream semiconductor industry. One reason is the limited number of design tools available to help designers navigate design complexity, particularly the myriad of asynchronous implementation styles.

This dissertation focuses on managing the myriad of asynchronous implementation styles by utilizing a circuit-neutral model, called Links and Joints, and embedding this Link-Joint approach into a design flow. Although years of past work have already laid the groundwork, the work in this dissertation identifies and addresses key missing pieces.

First, the …

Some Hypergeometric Identities And Related Leonard Pairs, Taiyo Summers Terada

Dissertations and Theses

The notion of a Leonard pair was introduced by Terwilliger in 2001 to simplify Leonard's theorem, which classifies the orthogonal polynomials in the terminating branch of the Askey-Wilson scheme. In the same year, Kresch and Tamvakis made a conjecture about a certain ₄F₃ hypergeometric series while studying the arithmetic analogues of the standard conjectures for the Grassmanian G(2,n). The ₄F₃ series appearing in their conjecture is closely related to a family of orthogonal polynomials in the Askey-Wilson scheme. Consequently, the theory of Leonard pairs provides a useful framework for understanding their conjecture.

In …

Extreme Heat & Public Perception In Portland, Oregon: Evidence Of A Compounding Vulnerability Effect For Climate Hazards, Brianne Suldovsky, Molly Baer Kramer, Jonathan Fink

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extreme heat events are a global public health threat, and the frequency of these events are projected to increase significantly in the coming decades. Responding to extreme heat requires that municipalities communicate with public audiences. Generally speaking, risk communication and public engagement efforts are more effective when they are responsive to current risk perception trends. This social scientific study examines extreme heat risk perceptions, emergency response needs, and level of trust in first responders among residents of the Portland (OR) Metro Area. Using quantitative survey data, it demonstrates the compounding influence of three previously identified vulnerability indicators–poverty, disability, and race–on …