Ambisonics is an audio technique that allows for precise production, manipulation, and playback of full sphere surround sound. For the most part this method has been limited to academic circles, but recent advances in computing, software, and Virtual Reality (VR) have made Ambisonics more accessible and applicable than ever before. Although these developments are exciting, the amount of effects designed for this audio methodology is minuscule in comparison to traditional audio environments. The purpose of this project is to explore the Ambisonic implementation of traditional digital audio effects by creating an Ambisonic reverberator. To clarify, a reverberator is a structure that uses echoes to simulate the reflections of a 3D space. This effect was chosen as the focal point of this study because there is a significant amount of literature regarding its development in an Ambisonic context. Research proceedings consisted of an initial proposal, creating a testing algorithm, building a monophonic reverberator, and converting this architecture to Ambisonics. The final algorithm is comprised of a delay-line cascade that is fed back into itself forming a feedback loop. Inside this loop, the summation of these delays is transformed in space over time to create a rich three dimensional spatial image. Further exploration of the methods presented could lead to detailed three dimensional room modeling, proximity effects for VR, and Ambisonic adaptations of other digital audio effects.

Homelessness has reached crisis levels in Seattle and King County. Poor health outcomes and limited access to culturally competent, quality medical services are significant challenges for people experiencing homelessness. Despite the need for skill-building in this area, nursing students traditionally receive limited training in caring for homeless patients, and stigma toward this population is common among clinicians. Literature indicates that service learning experiences can help prepare nursing students to offer better care to the homeless. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of a quarter-long service learning course on the attitudes and behavioral intentions of nursing students toward homeless populations. This study examines data collected from 1st year Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students (n=112) enrolled in NSG 552: Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity at the University of Washington during Winter 2017 quarter. Students completed a 10-item survey at the beginning of the quarter and again at the end of the quarter. Survey domains included cultural awareness, knowledge of homelessness, and self-efficacy to provide care to homeless populations. Students also completed a professional reflection related to how their service learning experience influenced their practice. The survey responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The written reflections were reviewed to identify common themes. This study contributes to our understanding of how a quarter-long course with a service learning component can impact nursing students’ attitudes, perceptions and intentions of working with homeless populations. By better understanding the effect of the course on students, UW health sciences faculty can better tailor coursework to ensure nursing students are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to deliver culturally competent care to patients experiencing homelessness.

Early identification of homeless students (as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987) allows school nurses to partner with other school staff to address social, emotional, and physical health barriers to learning and academic success. School nurses are generally aware of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act provisions but face barriers when providing effective care. These barriers include high caseloads, lack of flagging homeless students in the school-nursing database, and lack of a systematic plan to address the myriad issues homeless students face. This survey asked 80 nurses from the School Nurse Organization of Washington to identify barriers to providing care for homeless students and their perceptions about priorities in providing care. Areas of improvement are identified to better standardize nursing care of McKinney-Vento-identified students. Survey results specifically makes policy recommendations for Washington state school nurses to increase their frequency of interaction with homeless students by classifying them as a higher level of nursing care. It is important to increase the frequency of interactions and flag homeless students because school nurses may be the only healthcare professional homeless students have access to.

Newborns and children are at a much higher risk to adverse drug reactions, which is a significant public health problem. This is partially due to the lack of knowledge of the ontogeny of drug-metabolizing enzymes (DMEs). There are two types of DMEs, known as Phase-I and Phase -II DMEs. Phase I DMEs catalyze oxidation, reduction and hydrolysis reactions. Cytochrome P450s (CYPs) are a superfamily of Phase I oxidative enzymes responsible for the metabolism of a wide spectrum of drugs. Phase-II DMEs are responsible for various conjugation reactions including UDP glucuronidation, sulfonation and glutathione conjugation. Gut microbiome is known to regulate xenobiotic metabolism in adult mouse liver, but little is known of its potential involvement in the ontogeny of DMEs. The goal of this study was to determine the developmental regulation of Phase I and Phase II DMEs using germ free (GF) mice as a model. We bred both control and GF mice under the same housing conditions, and collected livers from male mice at the following ages: Days 1, 5, 10, 15, 25, 60, and 120. We isolated total RNAs and determined the RNA concentration using a Nanodrop spectrophotometer. We also determined the RNA integrity using gel electrophoresis by visualizing the 28S and 18S ribosomal RNA subunits. Using RT-qPCR we quantified the mRNAs of major DMEs and evaluated differences between control and GF mice using T-Test. As compared to age-matched control mice, the mRNAs of the xenobiotic-metabolizing Cyp3a11 was down-regulated in livers of GF mice at multiple ages including Days 10, 60, 120. Conversely, the expression of the lipid-metabolizing enzyme Cyp4a14 was up-regulated at the following ages: Days 5, 15, 60, and 120 in GF mice. In conclusion, our data suggest that the ontogeny of some DMEs is profoundly modified by lack of gut microbiota.

Black men are disproportionately represented among the number of people killed through the use of police deadly force each year. With the development of technology and the pervasiveness of social media in every day life, people have the ability to watch and re-watch these deaths on a daily basis. This phenomenon has become particularly prevalent in recent years, sparked by the graphic videos of deadly force used on Eric Garner and Philando Castile. Although there is a significant body of literature on the impact of racism, discrimination, and violence on black male self-perception, group identity and political attitudes, little is understood about the impact of this new form of publicized fatal violence. For this research project, I explore how black men are being exposed to this specific type of fatal violence, and outcomes related specifically to changes in political response, attitudes, and group identity. This process included a series of three open-ended focus groups, each comprised of 7-8 black male undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Washington. From these focus groups I identified 4-5 individuals and conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews to build on themes established in the focus groups. The information from these focus groups and interviews provide a unique insight into changing forms of discrimination and violence black men face, and the implications this violence has for their own political actions and behaviors.

The plainfin midshipman fish, Porichthys notatus, is a species of teleost fish that produces social acoustic signals for intraspecific communication. One social signal used during reproduction is the male advertisement call or “hum”. The hum is essential for courtship and reproduction because females use it to localize males at night during the breeding season. The hum has been implicated in mate selection, because the nocturnal environment prevents visual assessment of males. Here, I aimed to test the hypothesis that the male hum is a condition-dependent or “honest” acoustic signal that provides information related to the quality of the sender. I plan to investigate whether the acoustic properties of the hum are related to size and/or other morphological characteristics of the type I male (i.e., the condition or quality of the sender). We characterized the sound pressure level (SPL) and first five harmonics (H1-H5) of each hum using an oscilloscope and Adobe Audition. Furthermore, we measured standard length (distance from the tip of the snout to the base of the caudal fin), total mass, gonad mass, swim bladder volume, and swim bladder mass to calculate condition factor (K, a measure of body volume that relates to animal condition), gonadosomatic index (GSI, a ratio of gonad mass to body mass), and swim bladder muscle index (SBMI, a ratio of swim bladder muscle mass to body mass). The hum’s harmonics and SPL were statistically analyzed for correlations with the morphometrics. Results indicate that the frequencies of the harmonics (H1-H5) were negatively correlated with male GSI, however our low sample size and statistical power lead us to conclude that further data collection will be needed. The results of this experiment will add key information related to the acoustic communication and behavior of the plainfin midshipman and will provide new directions to future behavioral experiments.
 

Human-associated bacteria are important for human health, but little is known about how these bacteria interact with each other. Bacteroides fragilis (B. fragilis) is a Gram-negative bacteria that is found in the human gut and assists in nutrition. B. fragilis genomes encode the type VI secretion system (T6SS), a needle-like structure that transports toxins into nearby competitor cells. T6SS is used to gain advantage over competitors, yet our lab has observed that B. fragilis strains in adults are four times more likely to lack T6SS than strains in infants, suggesting B. fragilis may lose this mechanism over time. Why would T6SS be lost if it is used to gain an advantage over competitors? I hypothesize that B. fragilis inactivates T6SS because it is no longer required. To test this, I passaged B. fragilis strains with T6SS under competition conditions in which the recipient is either susceptible or immune to the effects of T6SS-delivered toxins. I predicted that recipients with immunity will cause B. fragilis to inactivate its T6SS mechanism, while predicting recipients that are susceptible to be killed off by the toxins delivered via T6SS in B. fragilis. Competitions proceeded for 24 hours, followed with the selection of the donor strain by addition of antibiotics. After selection of donor strains, each were archived in glycerol for evolutionary documentation. Subsequent passages were commenced with newly selected donors. Every 5 generations, competitions proceeded to evaluate competitive fitness of T6SS; whether or not B. fragilis has inactivated its T6SS. Whole genome sequencing revealed the mechanism by which T6SS was inactivated at the level of DNA mutations. By using experimental evolution to study interbacterial interactions within the human gut, we will have a better understanding of the long-term dynamics of the human microbiome and its role in influencing human health.

In this thesis I interrogate the “It Gets Better”(IGB) video project by Dan Savage, using an intersectional analysis to reveal the ways in which it reinforces politics of respectability, neoliberalism, and lacks an intersectional approach to the process of coming out across lines of gender identity, race/ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, and ability. To help frame the research of this paper, I will address the following questions: 1) who is the intended audience of “It Gets Better”? 2) How and in what ways do hierarchies get created within a single group, rather than between two groups? 3) What are the consequences of delivering a message that it will "get better"? 4) How does “It Gets Better” apply to individuals living with multiple, marginalized identities? 5) In what ways do racialized LGBTQ bodies feel torn between their racial/ethnic community and the LGBTQ community?  I chose to research this topic because as a genderqueer and queer person there have been instances that my life has not gotten better since coming out. By the same token, I have several friends who have had particularly difficult experiences because of coming out due to their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), contending with gender dysphoria, nationality, religion, and inaccessibility to resources (e.g.- healthcare, education, housing) within the capitalist structures of the United States (U.S.). My goal in this thesis is to interrupt neoliberal notions of “getting better” and instead turn our attention to the structures in society that do not allow life to get better for all LGBTQ people after coming out.

When cold-season oceanic midlatitude cyclones make landfall over coastal mountain ranges, forecasters commonly assume that locations at higher elevations and closer to the mountainous interior will receive greater orographic precipitation enhancement under all synoptic conditions. In this study, we test this assumption by examining precipitation data obtained at two stations on the windward slopes of the Olympic Mountains in the northwest corner of Washington State. These stations are located 35.2 and 45.4 km from the coast along the Quinault river valley, only 10.2 km apart. It was found that the two stations often recorded drastically different amounts of rain for the same storm system. The U.S. Climate Reference Network (CRN) site is located immediately northeast of Lake Quinault at 86.7 meters elevation, only slightly lower than the second station in Bunch Field at 115.8 meters elevation, which is located slightly closer to the higher terrain of the Olympic Range. This study examines daily rainfall at the CRN and Bunch Field sites over 9 winter seasons (Sept 1 -Mar 31) from October 2006 through December 2015. Dates were identified where one station received 15 millimeters more precipitation than the other in a 24 h period. Composite synoptic maps were made using the NCEP North American Regional Reanalysis data for dates when CRN exhibited higher rainfall totals and for when Bunch exhibited higher rainfall totals. It was found that when CRN had significantly more rainfall than Bunch Field, the flow was predominantly from the SW at all levels and warmer than climatological average. When Bunch Field had significantly more rainfall than CRN, the synoptic flow was more southerly with a large trough and a strongly baroclinic structure. These subtle differences illustrate that orographic enhancement patterns vary strongly with large-scale environmental conditions. The results can be applied to how flooding events can vary on small scales, which in term will inform the management of hydrologic resources.

The Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX) was a ground validation field campaign centered on the Olympic Peninsula designed to provide physical validation and verification of satellite precipitation measurements from the constellation of satellites known as the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM). The goal of OLYMPEX was to validate and document precipitation measurements in midlatitude frontal systems moving from the Pacific Ocean to the coast and then to the high terrain and leeside. The assets featured in OLYMPEX included extensive ground instrumentation, soundings and dropsondes, several radars, and aircraft all helping to monitoring storm systems as they approached and then traversed the Olympic Peninsula during the intensive field operations from November 2015 through March 2016. Ground instrumentation was located at a number of different elevations mainly focusing on the windward southwest side of the Olympic Mountains and scattered in other areas of the Olympic Peninsula in locations where precipitation has not been previously measured. This presentation examines patterns of orographic precipitation enhancement using this extensive gauge network and ground radar data to describe and quantify patterns of enhancement and how they vary with synoptic conditions, specifically during the December 8-10th atmospheric river event. The key synoptic parameters that affected the patterns of enhancement included the stability, the strength and direction of the low level flow, the intensity of synoptic scale forcing and the transport of water vapor. These synoptic parameters varied with storm sector. Deep stratiform precipitation with high melting level and low level jet produce strong orographic enhancement along initial windward slopes. Post-frontal conditions accompanied by a low melting level and convective cells are associated with a greater degree of enhancements over interior locations. Pre-frontal and blocked flow conditions show no significant level of enhancement between coastal and inland sites. These findings provide never-before-seen detail of the relationships between storm sectors and orographic precipitation enhancement and can be applied wherever midlatitude cyclones cross coastal mountain ranges around the world.