Digital Commons Network^™

Rdkg: A Reinforcement Learning Framework For Disease Diagnosis On Knowledge Graph, Shipeng Guo, Kunpeng Liu, Pengfei Wang, Weiwei Dai, Yi Du, Yuanchun Zhou, Wenjuan Cui

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Automatic disease diagnosis from symptoms has attracted much attention in medical practices. It can assist doctors and medical practitioners in narrowing down disease candidates, reducing testing costs, improving diagnosis efficiency, and more importantly, saving human lives. Existing research has made significant progress in diagnosing disease but was limited by the gap between interpretability and accuracy. To fill this gap, in this paper, we propose a method called Reinforced Disease Diagnosis on Knowlege Graph (RDKG). Specifically, we first construct a knowledge graph containing all information from electronic medical records. To capture informative embeddings, we propose an enhanced knowledge graph embedding method …

Checklist Of Mosses Of Oregon, 2022, John Christy, David H. Wagner, David Kofranek

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

This list is based on Christy et al. (1982) and supersedes any online versions posted prior to the date shown above. Additions to the flora since 1982 are marked by asterisks, with the earliest known verified sources noted in square brackets. Unless noted otherwise, nomenclature conforms to Flora of North America Volumes 27 and 28. Most family placements follow Goffinet et al. 2014. For convenience, synonyms used by Lawton (1971) and more recent works are provided in square brackets. In general, sources for nomenclatural changes can be found in the TROPICOS database. The checklist is followed by annotated lists of …

As You Like It: Building, Executing, And Assessing An Adaptable Library Instruction Program For First-Year Experience Courses, Joy I. Hansen

Communications in Information Literacy

Providing targeted experiences for first-year students both inside and outside the classroom is essential for building connections and creating a foundation for skill development necessary for academic success. Many first-year programs include a standalone course for incoming students or specific content weaved into existing course offerings. Information literacy skill-building holds an important place in these efforts; therefore, instruction librarians are provided additional opportunities to collaborate with faculty and reach students. Depending upon the size of the institution, however, the sheer number of first-year courses combined with shrinking library staff pose challenges. This Innovative Practices article is one library’s experience with …

Review: Online Instruction: A Practical Guide For Librarians By Emily Mroczek, Monica Babaian

Communications in Information Literacy

Review of Mroczek, E. (2022). Online instruction: A practical guide for librarians. Rowman & Littlefield.

Incentivizing Information Literacy Integration: A Case Study On Faculty–Librarian Collaboration, Jill K. Becker, Samantha Bishop Simmons, Natalie Fox, Andi Back, Betsaida M. Reyes

Communications in Information Literacy

Frequently, information literacy instruction takes the form of a one-shot library session with minimal collaboration between librarians and teaching faculty. To offer an alternative to this model, librarians implemented the Information Literacy Mini-Grant; an incentivized program inviting teaching faculty to collaborate with librarians to redesign an assignment to integrate information literacy into their course. Following the semester-long collaboration, teaching faculty provided written feedback and participated in a panel discussion to share their experiences with the program. This case study examines teaching faculty’s perceptions of collaborating with librarians in the pilot year of the program. Teaching faculty’s feedback provided insights into …

Review: Virtue Information Literacy: Flourishing In An Age Of Information Anarchy, Jessica A. Hawkes

Communications in Information Literacy

Review of Bivens-Tatum, W. (2022). Virtue information literacy: Flourishing in an age of information anarchy. Library Juice Press.

Webinar: Individual Wayfinding In The Context Of Visual Impairment, Blindness, And Deafblindness, Amy Parker, Martin Swobodzinski

TREC Webinar Series

In this presentation we will highlight our past research on human indoor-outdoor wayfinding on an urban college campus. Our work is aimed at facilitating independent travel for people with blindness and low vision. Our research was funded by two successive grants from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities/US Department of Transportation. One of the central research questions sought to capture wayfinding preferences, information needs, and lived experiences of blind and low-vision pedestrian travelers. The projects afforded close collaboration with external partners, and foremost the American Printing House for the Blind. Our focus in the presentation will be on the …

Listening To First Generation College Students In Engineering: Implications For Libraries & Information Literacy, Emily Dommermuth, Linds W. Roberts

Communications in Information Literacy

First-generation college students (FGCS) in engineering bring a wealth of knowledge to their academic and social experiences in higher education, in contrast to deficit-based narratives that students are underprepared. By listening to FGCS’ own experiences navigating higher education and using information literacy in their project-based work, librarians and educators can better understand students’ funds of knowledge, social capital, and identities, as well as the institutional barriers that must be removed. This paper shares interview findings with (n = 11) FGCS and suggests implications for professional practice that are relevant to information literacy for design, project-based, or practitioner focused disciplines.

Metacognitive Awareness For Il Learning And Growth: The Development And Validation Of The Information Literacy Reflection Tool (Ilrt), Sara Robertson, Michele Burke, Kimberly Olson-Charles, Reed Mueller

Communications in Information Literacy

This article describes the development and validation of the Information Literacy Reflection Tool (ILRT), a metacognitive self-assessment for use with undergraduate researchers. It was developed as a teaching and learning tool with the intent to help students recognize and engage the metacognitive domain as a step toward developing personal agency and self-regulation as lifelong, metaliterate learners. Throughout the scale development, three studies were conducted with nine expert reviewers and 44 community college students to consider content and face validity and 542 community college students as part of an item-reduction and construct validation effort. The resulting scale is most appropriately construed …

Instruction Librarians’ Perceptions Of The Faculty–Librarian Relationship, Lisa Becksford

Communications in Information Literacy

This study investigates instruction librarians’ perceptions of their relationships with teaching faculty. Respondents to a survey of U.S. instruction librarians indicated that they tended to agree that their teaching was valued and they had autonomy in what they taught. However, the often one-time nature of library instruction limited their effectiveness as teachers, and respondents felt that faculty did not view librarians’ teaching as equivalent to their own. Respondents also reported a disconnect between their professional identities and others’ viewpoints, describing having their teaching role minimized or misunderstood by others, especially faculty. Additionally, a relationship was found between some aspects of …

The Stories We Tell: Engaging With Authority In Critical Health Pedagogy, Rosalinda Hernandez Linares-Gray, Sara Newman Carroll, Emily K. Smith

Communications in Information Literacy

This Innovative Practices piece details the design of a scaffolded project in a public health course that paired a narrative inquiry assignment with an empirical health literature review assignment to highlight both the positivist and constructivist epistemologies of critical health research in public health. The authors discuss and reflect on the five parts that constitute the project, student learning outcomes, and the benefits of engaging with critical information literacy in an undergraduate public health course. The goal of this article is to provide practical applications of critical information literacy to librarians in the health sciences who work with undergraduate students.

Review: Implementing Excellence In Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion: A Handbook For Academic Libraries, Lalitha Nataraj

Communications in Information Literacy

Review of Lee, C., & Lym, B. (Eds.). (2022). Implementing excellence in diversity, equity, and inclusion: A handbook for academic libraries. Association of College and Research Libraries.

Working Paper No. 67, Insights Into Project Cybersyn, Leah Herrera

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that back in the 1970s Chile’s “Project Cybersyn” offered novel approaches and specific technologies that appeared to have benefitted capitalism as a system. The Spanish name, SYNCO served as an acronym for Sistema de Información y Control. President Salvador Allende expected that the attributes associated with Project Cybersyn could assist his efforts in implementing his variant of socialism. Cybersyn consisted of a network (Cybernet), software (Cyberstride), computers, a economic simulator known as CHECO, and a control room (Opsroom.) Cybersyn reached an advanced prototype stage; however, its fate was also tied to the interests of the …

Increasing Collaboration To Improve Student Outcomes: Improvement Science, Cassandra Diane Thonstad

Dissertations and Theses

The aspiration of achieving equitable outcomes for all students is a focus of schools, districts, and communities but has largely remained unattainable with the top-down implementation of change ideas and directives that come and go as quickly as they are implemented. Too often the direct users, students and classroom staff, are left out of the conversations around what works best to improve student success, contributing to the achievement gaps experienced by our students of color, students receiving special education or English language services, or in the case of a hook discipline, young men. By utilizing Improvement Science through collaboration across …

Scientology's Faq: Sciencing, Tech-Romancing, Simulacra, & Simulation An Estranged Content Analysis, David Scott Morrill

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines how the practice of sciencing, tech-romancing, simulacra, and simulation manifests in both the text and symbols used on audiences of the Church of Scientology’s outreach materials. It specifically examines its official FAQ page. Self-framing was observed that satisfied the definition of sciencing and tech-romancing. Under an Estranged approach, Morrill examined selections of the Church’s FAQ pages, coding for instances of sciencing, tech-romancing, simulacra, and simulation. The data indicate that the Church frequently adopts simulacra and engages in simulation. The Church was seen frequently adopting technological and scientific symbols and jargon. The degree of sciencing, tech-romancing, simulacra, and …

Spatial Validation Of Agent-Based Models, Kristoffer Wikstrom, Hal T. Nelson

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper adapts an existing techno–social agent-based model (ABM) in order to develop a new framework for spatially validating ABMs. The ABM simulates citizen opposition to locally unwanted land uses, using historical data from an energy infrastructure siting process in Southern California. Spatial theory, as well as the model’s design, suggest that adequate validation requires multiple tests rather than relying solely on a single test-statistic. A pattern-oriented modeling approach was employed that first mapped real and simulated citizen comments across the US Census tract. The suite of spatial tests included Global Moran’s I, complemented with bivariate correlations, as well as …

Balancing Free Play And Structured Learning Opportunities In Early Childhood Education Classrooms: Contrasting Perceptions Of Teachers And Researchers, Logan Mentzer

University Honors Theses

This study explored how early childhood education classrooms can provide a balance of learning opportunities that are both initiated by the child and facilitated by the teacher. Three transitional/preschool teachers were interviewed along with two researchers who study preschool/kindergarten classrooms. The results of this study found four strategies that are used in early childhood education classes that allow both child exploration and adult facilitation: 1) creating close teacher-child relationships; 2) creating close lead-assistant teacher relationships; 3) using both mental and physical planning; 4) using guided questions to teach. There were interesting differences in contrasting perspectives of early childhood education teachers …

The Resident View In Community- Based Care Residential Settings, Diana L. White, Ozcan Tunalilar, Serena Hasworth, Jaclyn Winfree

Institute on Aging Publications

The Resident VIEW is a measure of person-centered care (PCC) from residents’ perspectives and was previously studied in nursing homes. The current study presents descriptive data for the Resident VIEW in community-based care settings including assisted living, residential care (AL/RC), and adult foster homes (AFH). Using a two-stage sampling design, we recruited 31 AL/RC and 119 AFH in Oregon and completed face-to-face structured interviews with 227 and 195 residents, respectively. Residents provided ratings for both the importance of and their experience with 66 items that tapped into PCC practices in eight domains. Results are provided for each item, many of …

The Time Is Right For An Antarctic Biorepository Network, Kristin M. O’Brien, Elizabeth L. Crockett, Bryon J. Adams, Charles D. Amsler, Hannah J. Appiah-Madson, Allen Collins, Thomas Desvignes, Sarah Eppley, Multiple Additional Authors

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Antarctica is a central driver of the Earth’s climate and health. The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica serves as a major sink for anthropogenic CO2 and heat (1), and the loss of Antarctic ice sheets contributes significantly to sea level rise and will continue to do so as the loss of ice sheets accelerates, with sufficient water stores to raise sea levels by 58 m (2). Antarctica's marine environment is home to a number of iconic species, and the terrestrial realm harbors a remarkable oasis for life, much of which has yet to be discovered (3). Distinctive oceanographic features of the …

Confederate Statues In University Opinion Newspaper Articles: An Analysis Of Themes And Attachment, Jamie Nicole Knopf

Dissertations and Theses

Many have asked for Confederate monuments' removal while others argue that they should remain or be recontextualized. Knopf analyzed themes found in Southern university student newspapers on the monument issue and how the statues related to community attachment. Using thematic analysis, Knopf identified six themes across the articles, and found that both removal and recontextualization arguments refer to the ideology behind the statues and the impacts this can have on students. Instances of attachment were used in both removal and recontextualization articles.

Urban Green Roofs Can Support A Diversity Of Parasitoid Wasps, Aramee C. Diethelm, Susan Masta

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Green roofs are often installed atop buildings to provide ecological services such as mitigating storm water runoff and cooling air within urban heat islands. We found that green roofs in Portland, Oregon, also can support biodiversity, including a diverse assemblage of parasitoid wasps, with 20 morphospecies from 10 families present on the four roofs we surveyed. The roofs with greater plant diversity and structural complexity harbored comparatively more parasitoid morphospecies than the structurally simpler Sedum-dominated roofs. The oldest green roof supported much greater diversity than the younger roofs, including a comparably planted roof three times its size. Parasitoid wasps from …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet December 2022, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The December 5, 2022 Monthly packet includes the December agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held November 7, 2022.

You Need This: Global Fast Fashion, Environment, And Consumption Culture, Alexandra Lamm

Student Work

In looking at how global production of clothing has increased and shifted, we see the impacts in places like workers rights, environmental issues and cultural consumption. Although vastly different, through examination we will see how all are intrinsically linked. We have reached a truly global economy, and even when threatened with negative consequences of mass consumption in our daily lives, the road to actual change in the fashion industry becomes harder in time due to our dependency on the industry as a whole.

The Power Of Counterstory With Martín Alberto Gonzalez, Martín Alberto Gonzalez

PDXPLORES Podcast

In this episode of PDXPLORES, Chicano & Latino Studies Professor Martín Alberto Gonzalez discusses the counterstory. As Gonzalez explains, counterstories are a narrative form of scholarly communication that uses stories to disrupt oppressive narratives established by empowered groups. Counterstory does so by pointing to the roles that systems of oppression, like white supremacy, racism, sexism, and capitalism, play in society, and higher education, in particular, by providing alternative narratives.

Click on the "Download" button to access the audio transcript.

International Mental Health Education, Service, And Research: Working Across Cultural Boundaries With Humility, Creativity, And Perseverance [Keynote], Yun Shi, Zachary Pietrantoni, Maha Y. See

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

This keynote presentation addresses doing International mental health education, services, and research with humility, creativity, and perseverance.

Scaling Epa-Rimm With Multicore System Management Interrupt Handlers, Alexander K. Freed

Dissertations and Theses

Continuous runtime integrity measurement mechanisms (RIMMs) can be used for timely detection of kernel and hypervisor rootkits. Researchers have proposed running RIMMs in privileged execution environments, such as the x86 architecture’s System Management Mode (SMM), to detect interference from rootkits that have gained control of the host operating system. However, the extended amount of time in SMM required to perform inspections can cause severe disruption to the host. A previously proposed RIMM design called EPA-RIMM addresses this by decomposing long inspections across multiple System Management Interrupts (SMI), the interrupt used to invoke SMM.

EPA-RIMM is intended for deployment on server-class …

Portland Street Response: Year Two Mid-Point Evaluation, Greg Townley, Emily K. Leickly

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Publications and Presentations

Executive Summary Excerpt:

Overview of the Program Portland Street Response (PSR), a program within Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R), assists people experiencing mental health and behavioral health crises. The program operates daily from 8 AM to 10 PM and responds to calls throughout the city of Portland. The team consists of mental health crisis responders, community health medics, community health workers, and peer support specialists. PSR is dispatched from the Bureau of Emergency Communications (BOEC) when a caller reports one or more of the following and the individual has no known access to weapons and is not displaying physically combative …

Sensor Formed From Conductive Nanoparticles And A Porous Non-Conductive Substrate, Erik T. Thostenson, Thomas Schumacher

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In various aspects, the sensors include a substrate that is porous and non-conductive with nanoparticles deposited onto the substrate within pores of the substrate by an electrophoretic process to form a sensor element. The nanoparticles are electrically conductive. The sensor includes a detector in communication with the sensor element to measure a change in an electrical property of the sensor element. The change in the electrical property may result from alterations in quantum tunneling between nanoparticles within the sensor element, in various aspects.

Feasibility Of Tracking Human Kinematics With Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (Slam), Sepehr Laal, Paul Vasilyev, Sean Pearson, Mateo Aboy, James Mcnames

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We evaluated a new wearable technology that fuses inertial sensors and cameras for tracking human kinematics. These devices use on-board simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms to localize the camera within the environment. Significance of this technology is in its potential to overcome many of the limitations of the other dominant technologies. Our results demonstrate this system often attains an estimated orientation error of less than 1^o and a position error of less than 4 cm as compared to a robotic arm. This demonstrates that SLAM’s accuracy is adequate for many practical applications for tracking human kinematics.

Working Paper No. 74, Some Influential Effects Of The Typewriter On The American Economy, Bander Qadan

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that the introduction of the typewriter generated effects upon the American economy by promoting productivity increases, enhancing communications, and improving management. In addition, this inquiry seeks to illustrate how the typewriter affected American businesses by providing efficiency in time management and documents’ production. Furthermore, this inquiry shall showcase how the typewriter affected women’s work in the American economy, especially with respect to inclusivity within the workplace as well as the enhancement of communications. Additionally, this inquiry shall analyze how the development of the QWERTY keyboard and its related “lock-in” generated effects on the American economy.