A total of 754 adult respondents from the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) participated in a needs assessment survey conducted between May 25, 2020 and June 30, 2020. The survey aimed to reach out to specific populations: immigrants and refugees (N=246), non-immigrant racial/ethnic minority groups (N=163), and people with disabilities (N=93) each had a large enough sample size to include in this report. The survey also aimed to reach out to LGBTQ+ populations, however, we did not collect enough surveys from people who identified as LGBTQ+ to have reliable information. Key findings from the survey included: Understand Information from MOA • Most (94%) reported being knowledgeable/somewhat knowledgeable about the Municipality’s emergency orders and changes related to COVID-19 • Most (93%) reported that the Municipality’s policies related to COVID-19 are clear/very clear. Less Risk Behaviors • Immigrants and refugees, and people with disabilities, were significantly more likely to engage in COVID-19 related protective behaviors (wearing mask, physical distancing, etc.) compared with other survey respondents. More Worried • In terms of mental health, racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants and refugees reported significantly higher levels of worry in terms of household finances, losing employment, having self or members of their household being infected by coronavirus, and having enough to eat compared with other survey respondents. Information Preferences • All three examined groups preferred receiving information about COVID-19 through Internet, television, texting, and email. • A majority of respondents for each examined demographic group reported that their primary source of information about COVID-19 were general media sources (i.e., KTUU, KTVA, ADN) and official sources of information in Alaska (health departments, Dr. Zink, governor, mayor). A majority of immigrants and refugees in the sample (81%) also got their information from social sources (family, friends, social media).

An online survey of a panel of 295 Anchorage residents 18 years old and older was conducted June 16-18, 2020. This was the fourth survey since May 2020 conducted by the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) regarding COVID-19 related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The first survey in the series was a population-based cell phone survey of Anchorage residents conducted May 6-10. The second (May 20-22) third (June 2-4) and fourth (June 16-18) surveys were conducted online with a panel of participants from the first survey. Key findings from the fourth survey included:  Most respondents (72%) wore a mask most or all of the time outside their home.  Most (90%) spent time outside their home the day before the survey.  Most (64%) supported mandating wearing masks either “now” or “later.”  Almost half (47%) had physical contact with someone not in their household.  Most (76%) came within six feet of someone not from their household.  Most (91%) felt somewhat knowledgeable or very knowledgeable about MOA COVID-19 emergency orders.  COVID-19 related risk behaviors increased among those who: o Had less than a college degree o Were younger (<45 years) o Had lower perceived threat of COVID-19 o Were less likely to bring a mask when they went out o Were less likely to wash or sanitize hands when touching things touched by others. Compared with previous surveys, more respondents are leaving their homes and coming into physical contact with others. However, most survey respondents also reported wearing masks outside their home, supported a mandate to wear masks, and did not have physical contact with others. KEY MESSAGES As a whole, panel respondents reported positive COVID-19 mitigation behaviors. Messaging could continue to employ the need for personal responsibility to reduce risk, while emphasizing community/societal responsibility and benefit. Integrated communications with key education partners (ASD, UAA, APU, etc.) could also help reach groups associated with COVID-19 related risk behaviors. To encourage increased receptiveness to mitigation behaviors, messaging could try to incorporate affinity group imagery and rhetorical framing.

Additional analysis with the panel survey data was conducted to identify which modifiable and demographic factors were independently associated with risk behaviors related to COVID-19 (i.e., demographic groups less likely to practice physical distancing and good hygiene). We found that as the respondents’ level of perceived threat of COVID-19 and age decreased, the COVID-related risk behavior increased. Groups who had lower levels of perceived threat of COVID-19 included people with low socioeconomic status (SES), those who had children in their household, and those who lacked clarity regarding the Municipality’s policies related to COVID-19. These findings suggest that efforts to decrease overall risk of COVID-19 in Anchorage should consider developing education and communication strategies that heighten awareness of the seriousness and threat of COVID-19 to public health. These strategies could be designed to reach out specifically to people from low SES groups, as well as those with children in their households. Additionally, communication strategies could improve the community’s understanding of policies related to COVID-19.

As of May 20, 2020, 206 of the 402 identified cases of COVID-19 statewide have occurred among Anchorage residents (51%). Between May 6-10, 2020, approximately 56 days since the first case of COVID-19 in Anchorage was announced, a representative sample of 996 adults in the Municipality of Anchorage completed a cell phone survey designed to assess knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and behaviors related to the epidemic locally. This is a brief summary of highlights, and a detailed report will follow.

The Arctic is experiencing warming and ecological shifts due to climate change and the compounded effects of polar amplification. There is a deficit of information surrounding the carbon cycle response in Arctic Alaskan coastal marsh environments to these forces. The Cape Espenberg barrier beach system has been mostly preserved through time as a shoreline-parallel, linear geometry prograding geomorphic feature. This study determines the Arctic carbon and mineral accumulation trends in marsh environments at Cape Espenberg for both paleo (pre 1850 AD) and modern (post 1850 AD) timeframes. This project makes connections between the responses of carbon and mineral materials to paleo and modern climate changes, and how this relationship may have evolved through time. Analytical analyses through radioisotope ¹³⁷Cs and ²¹⁰Pb, ¹⁴C, stable isotope spectrometry (δ¹³C), elemental (%C, %N, C:N), and dry bulk density and carbon density measurements yield a comprehensive physical and chemical dataset. Radioisotope dating techniques in the Arctic have proved challenging due to the dynamism of the environment. However, the combination of Constant Rate of Supply and Constant Initial Concentration age depth models has helped constrain ages to sediment cores even under variable conditions. Results indicate carbon and mineral accumulations have increased from paleo to modern times which indicates better growing and/or preservation conditions for organic matter (OM) under a modern climate. This agrees well with paleoclimate trends in the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), and warm periods interspersed within the Little Ice Age (LIA), which correlate to greater productivity of terrestrial organic matter and isotopically lighter δ¹³C values (a terrestrial signature). Cold climate periods within the Little Ice Age correlate with increased aquatic organic matter sourcing and heavier δ¹³C values. Modern warming will likely continue to drive carbon sourcing towards terrestrial signatures as future temperatures are predicted to rise with global climate change. If the swale environments at Cape Espenberg can maintain ideal growing conditions (i.e. wet/anoxic soils and lower salinity to limit organic material decay, higher temperatures to promote growth) then Cape Espenberg will likely remain a viable carbon reservoir in the future. However, the question of whether the barrier system as a whole will continue to prograde under a regime of rising sea levels and increased storm impacts is unclear. The results of this study contribute towards understanding the dynamism of Arctic coastline mineral and carbon cycling and their ecological response to the current warming climate.

Microfluidics research is a constantly evolving and developing field of research in the biological, chemical, and medical sciences. To perform microfluidic analyses, various types of pump designs have been developed or optimized. These pumps are generally capable of pumping flow in the range of 0.1-100s of microliters (µL) per minute, with the goal of pumping fluid with an extremely consistent flow rate. These pumps include, but are not limited to, peristaltic, syringe, membrane, and lobe pumps. Both commercial and open-source designs have been developed to meet the needs of continued research. Commercial designs are very expensive, but offer limited flexibility to tailor the usage for custom assays. Open-source designs that have been presented may lack support, or may be designed to use fabrication technologies that are less commonly available than conventional desktop 3D printing. Due to this, many laboratories may be limited in their microfluidic research work due to either availability of commercial pumps, or usability of open-source pump designs. This work presents two iterations of a novel design for a 3D-printable microfluidic peristaltic pump. The pumps developed herein have been tested to demonstrate consistent performance operating over long-term periods of up to ten days continuously. These pumps have been tested to demonstrate capability of delivering aqueous flow as slow as flow ranges of 10s of µL/min. These pumps are capable of maintaining an outlet pressure of up to 220 kilopascals (kPa). In a tube of 1 mm inner diameter, this pressure would drive a flow rate of 10 µL/min through tubing up to 6.6 meters long. Finally, this design has been optimized to improve the user experience and make these peristaltic pumps both easy to maintain and easy to operate by a non-technical user.

Polymer flooding has become globally established as a potential enhanced oil recovery method for heavy oils. To determine whether this technology may be useful in developing the substantial heavy oil resources on the Alaska North Slope, a polymer flood field pilot commenced at the Milne Point Unit in August 2018. This study seeks to evaluate the results of the field pilot on a technical and economic basis. A reservoir simulation model is constructed and calibrated to predict the oil recovery performance of the pilot through machine-assisted reservoir simulation techniques. To replicate the early water breakthrough observed during waterflooding, transmissibility contrasts are introduced into the simulation model, forcing viscous fingering effects. In the ensuing polymer flood, these transmissibility contrasts are reduced to replicate the restoration of injection conformance during polymer flooding. Transmissibility contrasts are later reinstated to replicate fracture overextension interpreted in one of the producing wells. The calibrated simulation models produced at each stage of the history matching process are used to forecast oil recovery. These forecasts are used as input for economic analysis, incremental to waterflooding expectations. The simulation forecasts indicate that polymer flooding significantly increases the heavy oil production for this field pilot compared to waterflooding alone, yielding attractive project economics. However, meaningful variations between simulation scenarios demonstrate that a simulation model is only valid for prediction if flow behavior in the reservoir remains consistent with that observed during the history matched period. Critically, this means that a simulation model calibrated for waterflooding may not fully capture the technical and economic benefits of an enhanced oil recovery process such as polymer flooding. Subsequently, the simulation model and economic model are used in conjunction to conduct a sensitivity analysis for polymer flood design parameters, from which recommendations are provided for both the continued operation of the current field pilot and future polymer flood designs. The results demonstrate that a higher polymer concentration can be injected due to the development of fractures in the reservoir. The throughput rate should remain high without exceeding operating constraints. A calculated point-forward polymer utilization parameter demonstrates the decreasing efficiency of the polymer flood at later times in the pattern life. Future projects will benefit from starting polymer injection earlier in the pattern life. A pattern with tighter horizontal well spacing will observe a greater incremental benefit from polymer flooding.

This work presents the various probabilistic methodology for forecasting petroleum production in shale reservoirs. Two statistical methods are investigated, Bayesian and frequentist, combined with various decline curve deterministic models. A robust analysis of well-completion properties and how they affect the production forecast is carried out. Lastly, a look into the uncertainties introduced by the statistical methods and the decline curve models are investigated to discover any correlation and plays that otherwise would not be apparent. We investigated two Bayesian methods - Absolute Bayesian Computation (ABC) and GIBBS sampler - and two frequentist methods - Conventional Bootstrap (BS) and Modified Bootstrap (MBS). We combined these statistical methods with five empirical models - Arps, Duong, Power Law Model (PLE), Logistic Growth Model (LGA), and Stretched Exponential Decline Model (SEPD) - and an analytical Jacobi 2 theta model. This allowed us to make a robust comparison of all these approaches on various unconventional plays across the United States, including Permian, Marcellus, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Barnett, and Bakken shale, to get detailed insight on how to forecast production with minimal prediction errors effectively. Analysis was carried out on a total of 1800 wells with varying production history data lengths ranging from 12 to 60 months on a 12-month increment and a total production length of 96 months. We developed a novel approach for developing and integrating informative model parameter priors into the Bayesian statistical methods. Previous work assumed a uniform distribution for model parameter priors, which was inaccurate and negatively impacted forecasting performance. Our results show the significant superior performance of the Bayesian methods, most notably at early hindcast size (12 to 24 months production history). Furthermore, we discovered that production history length was the most critical factor in production forecasting that leveled the performance of all probabilistic methods regardless of the decline curve model or statistical methodology implemented. The novelty of this work relies on the development of informative priors for the Bayesian methodologies and the robust combination of statistical methods and model combination studied on a wide variety of shale plays. In addition, the whole methodology was automated in a programming language and can be easily reproduced and used to make production forecasts accurately.

The Northern Gulf of Alaska experiences pronounced seasonality and inter-annual variability characterized by a significant bloom of phytoplankton in the spring. Neocalanus copepods in the NGA have evolved to match their lifecycle to the seasonality of the Gulf of Alaska and feed upon the spring phytoplankton bloom. All three of these Neocalanus species utilize diapause as an over-wintering strategy; acquiring large stores of lipid to sustain them through winter hibernation and subsequent reproduction. Zooplankton were sampled with 150 and 505 µm mesh nets from 0 to 1200 m along the Seward Line and within Prince William Sound in the Northern Gulf of Alaska during 2018-2020 to track the physiological process of Neocalanus copepods preparing for diapause. We measured lipid sac area, lipid volume and percent lipid to quantify lipid content. Neocalanus showed significant interannual variability in final lipid accumulation both at depth and in the surface during the study period. For all three species, lipid content increased with increasing stage and prosome length. Lipid content increased from spring to summer for N. flemingeri, remaining steady into fall as animals molted into adults and descended to depth for diapause. Neocalanus plumcrhus stored lipid from spring to summer before descending slightly after N. flemingeri. Neocalanus cristatus exhibited dissimilar behavior to the other two species, storing consistently low amounts of lipid, alluding to a different lifecycle. Each Neocalanus species displayed similar lipid accumulation behavior with offset timing from one another. Neocalanus exhibits an earlier developmental timing as compared to other lipid accumulating copepods giving them a competitive advantage to reach maturity in time to feed on the early phase of the spring phytoplankton bloom faster than other species. Our data provided some evidence for both the lipid accumulation hypothesis and the developmental program hypothesis being utilized in Neocalanus populations in the Northern Gulf of Alaska. This work serves as the first detailed study of body condition and lipid sac condition in Neocalanus populations throughout the water column within the Northern Gulf of Alaska.

The effects of turbulence on power generation from a Current Energy Converter (CEC) are not fully understood. This thesis investigates the correlation between a vertical axis CEC's power output and the water velocity in the frequency and time domains. Chapter 2 shows the correlation between velocity and electrical power in frequency space. This correlation gives insight into the size of eddies that influence the CEC's power output. The results of this correlation analysis show that eddies of diameter around 0.8m have a noticeable impact on the power generation. Calculating the observed average integral length scale, the range of eddy diameters around the CEC are 0.52m-5.8m. Since 0.8m is in this observed range it suggests that the turbulence may influence the CEC's power output. Chapter 3 analyzes the relationship between the turbulence velocity cubed and electrical power through the correlation of the two data sets. The correlation was carried out by first separating out the four velocity components derived from cubing the sum of the turbulence and average velocities. The commonly used ratio of the turbulence kinetic energy to total kinetic energy does not include these cross terms nor are these cross terms typically included in the calculation of power derived from the turbulence velocity. The turbulence velocity cubed has a correlation of -0.007 with the CEC power output indicating that the turbulence has a small, negative impact on the CEC power output.