Blogs

Monday and Tuesday, I spent most of the day collecting two time points. On Wednesday, I set up for the next time point and spent the rest of the day working on data analysis. Since I had been performing two time points a day, I had a lot of data to analyze.

On Thursday, I collected samples from two time points and then measured outstanding manganese oxide samples. Friday, I collected a time point and then attended the intern seminar on communication.

Since we are so close to finishing I started working on my poster at the beginning of the week. This allowed me the time I needed to complete my poster up to the point I was currently at with my data. I even added color to the Sigmaplot graph to make it more appealing on the poster, since normal publication graphs are displayed in black and white. I also did whatever maintenance was needed around the lab during the week.

WOW!! My mind has been blown by the cultural immersion I have experienced in the last three weeks! The first week we started out with meeting with an agency in Moscow called RAIPON.  They are an agency that advocates and takes care of policy  for indigenous populations within Russia.They shared much of their work with indigenous population as well their willingness to have an partnership with Jon and OHSU. According to RAIPON, they have received an immense information pertaining to  mercury and the rivers in Russia.

During the previous week before Rachel left for her workshop in a different state for a week, I was given a list to accomplish by the end of the week. Last week I discovered while processing the data that one of the runs for the set point Labview VI program was jumping randomly up at the tops of each peak after the last sample point. In order to assess if the problem was programmatic I ran the biotic 24 hour run again on Monday once I came into work. During that day I also finished data processing for one of the runs and even did some more lab cleaning by acid washing some new materials.

Once again I began the week by preparing for a 24 hour biotic run on the pHstat, using the pH gradient Labview program instead of the pH set point program. This program also needed to be tested in triplicate with the same times and type of sampling throughout the 24 hours of experimentation. I started the first experiment on Monday and it continued till Tuesday. All of the data was collected and processed on Tuesday. During my downtime between sampling points I continued to process the previous data and any maintenance needed around the lab.

Within the couple of weeks, I’ve been working on my database in CMOP Server. Finally got my programming to work and print information from the database I had create from the beginning. Charles has guide me through the way to complete my project. Using the data from the Yukon River – Water quality data. Extracting the .xlsx file to .cvs file then inserting them to the database. Starting on new data – Site Data

Working with inserting data from the spreadsheet .csv files to the database, getting errors saying that there’s one field that repeats itself. You have to go back to the database to insert a new column and header, so the spreadsheets can insert the data through the program code and print out the data. After you have insert the new columns and header to the database, run your python script in the terminal window. If you get any Error: codes from the terminal, you’ll have to go back to your script to the line from the Error given.

I began the week by checking on the pH drift of the pH meter that had been sitting in a culture over a 72 hour period. Then I once again started a 24 hour biotic run with the pH set point program. This needed to be run in triplicate to assess the consistency of the program. This run also had sampling points at specific times collecting DIC data and the values of chlorophyll within the culture. This run lasted until Tuesday.

At the beginning of the week I was once again waiting to continue my project in some way. I continued to do more acid washing and maintenance work in the lab. Due to Rachel’s work in the radiation room, I even refreshed the batch cultures for further experimentation. Since I did not have much to do this week, I helped out with a different research project at Portland State University on Wednesday. I helped out by counting the amount of germinated seedlings in each pot and removing them so that even more seedlings can germinate in the future.

Week five and six were filled with finalizing the information that I needed to learn in order to go on my trip for Russia. I decided to take a trip to CRITFC (Columbia River Inter-Tibal Fish Commission), in order to find out what water quality issues were occuring in the very river in my back yard, the Columbia River.  I found out that rising temperature in the river is condsidered a big polluntant within the river.  The lower water quality affects the tribal fishing platform and indigenous populations can no longer drink the water straight out of the river.