Tree-ring analysis can provide information about the surrounding environment of trees, as ring widths often reflect the variability of the factors that limit their growth. Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva D. K. Bailey) provides crucial tree-ring data to understand paleoclimate, but the growth signals can be difficult to interpret. The bristle- cone record could present a potentially confounding narrative because of its mixed growth signals; in many cases, not all trees at one site...

Return to Sarah is a work for orchestra inspired by the composer's favorite novel depicted through programmatic, motivic, and introspective composition. The music renders the story through the eyes of the composer.

This paper examines the transition from government to governance in transboundary water resource management that is widely noted in the literature. As researchers and managers recognize the shortcomings of traditional management of natural resources, a shift away from the traditional, rules-­‐based approach to an adaptive, iterative, and cross-­‐scale form of management is occurring. This research focused on the Abbotsford-­‐Sumas Aquifer International Task Force as a possible example of this paradigm shift. Semi-­‐structured interviews and surveys...

Steal Yourself is a quest for identity, bursting with stories -- a hairdresser falls in love with the man who is robbing her salon, a wife steals a car that used to belong to her dead lover, two women trying to have a baby set off on a road trip filled with family secrets -- held together with a ribbon of flash fiction. The women in these stories are trying on lives - however likable...

Organic molecular crystalline (OMC) films are being investigated for use in a wide range of potential applications, from field effect transistors, to light-emitting diodes, and photovoltaic cells. The ultimate utility of OMC materials for such applications will depend on the degree and type of molecular order in deposited films, as well as the processing costs for preparing them. The goal of this thesis is to develop a method to produce high quality OMC thin films...

As sea level rise (SLR) accelerates in response to climate change, coastal wetlands must accrete vertically to prevent submergence and habitat loss. Padilla Bay, an estuary in the Puget Sound containing an expansive eelgrass meadow, has been hydrologically altered such that insufficient sedimentation may now prevent vertical accretion, potentially affecting the long-term survival of the eelgrass meadow. The objective of this study was to quantify trends in surface elevation change throughout Padilla Bay. To this...

Mammal remains from the Cherry Point site (45WH1) are analyzed to provide information about the nature of prehistoric mammal use in coastal sites in the Gulf of Georgia region from the Locarno Beach period (3,500 to 2,000 BP) to European contact (250 BP). Expectations regarding the taxonomic structure of the 45WH1 mammalian assemblage in the context of regional patterns are developed and evaluated. Specific hypotheses relating to the transition from a generalized forager lifeway to...

Special education teachers work with some of the neediest students in our nation's public schools and experience higher levels of attrition and emotional burnout than those teachers who work with the general student population. The purpose of this study was to examine a variety of teacher belief variables and job characteristics to help understand the phenomenon of emotional exhaustion experienced by special educators. Results indicated that 43% of the variability in the level of burnout...

Luminescent Solar Concentrators (LSCs) collect and concentrate sunlight for use in solar power generation. First proposed over 30 years ago, LSCs are simple devices consisting of a planar waveguide coated or impregnated with a fluorophore. Sunlight absorbed by the fluorophore, reemitted into the waveguide, and concentrated at the edges of the collector. The most substantial problem with previous iterations of LSC technology is that they suffer from escape cone losses (photons lost through the top...

Fundamental to the design of sustainable neighborhood spatial units, is an understanding of the relationship between sustainability, public outdoor space, and the production of social capital. Thoughtful and purposefully designed public outdoor space can act as a venue for the production of social capital essential for resilient and sustainable communities. The morphology of a public outdoor space plays a critical role in its success as effective infrastructure for the development of community social capital. This...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the leadership characteristics of successful NCAA Division I track and field head coaches through specific elements of leadership and coaching. The elements include integrity, communication, understanding of human behavior, knowledge of sport, commitment, styles, team building, team cohesion, and gender differences and the role they play in contributing to the development of a student-athlete's athletic and academic performance. This study utilized an inductive content analysis of coach...

The sedimentary Palm Spring Formation crops out in the Mecca Hills, CA and preserves valuable information about the evolution of the San Andreas fault system in the transtentional Salton Trough. Constraining the timing of deposition for the Palm Spring Formation upper unit is useful for estimating timing of basin development due to fault motions. Magnetostratigraphic correlation is used as the most viable means of dating this sequence because the unit lacks well constrained age indicative...

The purpose of my study was to find reliable patterns in the data that linked watershed characteristics to water quality. The project area was regional in scope, spanning two very different ecoregions, involving 50 lakes many of which have been sampled for 7 years. I found highly significant correlations (Kendall's tau > 0.500, pvalue < 0.001) between total phosphorus, chlorophyll α, total nitrogen, and turbidity. Total phosphorus, chlorophyll α, total nitrogen, and turbidity also strongly...

Regional scale risk assessments can be used to determine the likelihood of effects from multiple stressors on ecological or human endpoints at multiple scales. The Relative Risk Model framework can incorporate ecosystem services as endpoints in this multiple stressor- multiple endpoint approach. Through this research, I aimed to demonstrate an approach to integrating ERA and HHRA that could be applied to assess risk to human health and ecosystem services using the South River, VA as...

Apologues is a series of love poems that revolves around a community garden on Sehome Hill in Bellingham, Washington. Apologue refers to a tradition of subtle fables that communicate through stories of plants and animals. In that tradition, plants and animals appear in these poems alongside humans as subjects and as figures. Through these layered appearances and perceptions of nonhuman others, the poems attempt to question and meditate meaningfully on plant and animal lives even...

Since its discovery just over a decade ago, Pannexin-1 (Px1) has been recognized in a number of important physiological and pathophysiological processes such as taste, inflammation, and tumor suppression. This large-pore, polymodal ion channel was initially identified as ‗voltage-dependent,‘ though there have been no precise studies concerning the gating properties of Px1 to date. Because Px1 is expressed in excitable cells, identifying voltage-gating properties of Px1 was our primary goal. Using the two-electrode voltage clamp...

Astrobiology is an emerging field that addresses three fundamental questions: 1) How does “life,” defined as a “self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution,” (Mullen, 2013, p.1) in the Universe begin and evolve? 2) Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe? & 3) What is the future of life on Earth? With such intriguing questions, all rooted in human concerns, success in answering these questions depends upon the integration of diverse scientific disciplines, including the...

Geologic mapping in the Black Hills area strongly suggests that the middle Eocene basalts of the Crescent Formation and over- lying upper Eocene and Oligocene sedimentary rocks constitute a structurally coherent terrane that is bounded by northeast- and northwest-trending faults. I interpret the Black Hills as a homocline which dips about 10° to 15° to the west. Units within the block are commonly cut by normal and reverse faults, but are not appreciably folded. Major-...

Dedicated to Ron Erlandsen. -12°F is a programmatic piece based on my experiences as a deer hunter. It is a through composed, loose ternary A-B-A form with an introduction and coda. The introduction is based on the slow, meticulous walk into the woods in the cold darkness. The natural sounds of the breathing orchestra was incorporated to represent the heavy breathing as one walks into the woods. The piano and string quartet are the only...

Natural resource management efforts have historically concentrated on ecological goals to identify and prioritize conservation actions. However, successful implementation of conservation actions on private land requires conservation opportunity, or the willingness of landholders to participate in and accept conservation actions. Conservation opportunity on private land depends on a range of structural and social factors. Recent research emphasizes the importance of social factors and suggests incorporating social factors in conservation actions is necessary for the long-term...

Bird damage to fruit crops causes major economic loss to growers. The Pacific Northwest leads sweet cherry production in North America, but few studies highlight the impacts of bird damage to cherries in this region. Growers currently employ a diverse range of bird-deterrent strategies, but there is little information regarding efficacy. A low-impact management practice common to the region is the use of kestrel nest boxes in orchards. The American kestrel (Falco sparverius), is a...

Shoulder muscle dysfunction can lead to glenohumeral incongruity and can negatively affect glenohumeral joint stability. Fatigue of the infraspinatus could affect joint stability. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of fatigue on the muscle activation of the infraspinatus, specifically, the motor evoked potential (MEP) amplitude, peak-to-peak duration, and activation latency of the MEP. Eighteen healthy college age students (eleven males, seven females) participated in this study. Subjects were screened for history...

An ongoing study attempting to date boulders from Neoglacial moraines across the Sierra Nevada mountain range, CA using high precision cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN) exposure dating has yielded ages that contradict historical records and prior research in the range. To test whether these CRN ages have glacial significance or are merely a function of geomorphic processes that promote inheritance, I collected glaciolacustrine sediment cores to document independent glacier chronologies for the Lyell and Maclure glaciers in...

Sub-bottom profiles and core sampling indicate that a trough-like depression below the bay near South Bellingham is a Pleistocene erosional paleotopographic surface sloping bayward from the uplandds to the east. A series of Late Pleistocene glacial till and glaciomarine deposits overlie the erosional surface and fill the depression. The glacial deposits are overlain by Recent sand and mud deposits which are rich in wood fragments and shell materials. Bellingham Bay is basin-shaped with a deep...

Chemical mixtures are difficult to assess at the individual scale and are more challenging at the population scale. I have conducted a regional-scale ecological risk assessment by evaluating the effects of chemical mixtures on populations with a Bayesian Network- Relative Risk Model (BN-RRM) in four Washington state watersheds (Skagit, Nooksack, Cedar and Yakima). Organophosphate pesticides (diazinon, malathion and chlorpyrifos) were chosen as the chemical stressors and the Puget Sound Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) Evolutionary Significant...