Digital Commons Network^™

Art And Critical Thinking, Audrey Nixon

University Honors Theses

The voice of art molds and dictates norms and behaviors of society. Art eases people into sitting with discomfort or alternate ideas of the world. I work with mixed-media collage to respond and react to culture and the current American political climate. Through the act of expressing and working through thoughts and emotions, art teaches people how to process, it teaches histories of resistance, and empathy. Artists have the ability to engage their audience to critically think about what is happening in our world. By channeling expression and passion, art can help people make necessary connections about concepts that lead …

Hpv Prevention In Men: A Narrative Review Of Strategies, Risks, And Public Health Implications, Martin S. Lipsky, Bayler Gunnell, Justin Nguyen, Samantha Lee, Geo Wolfe, Man Hung

Institute on Aging Publications

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide, impacting both males and females. In men, HPV causes genital warts, more than 90% of anal cancers, and 60% of oropharyngeal cancers. Given that one in three men are infected with HPV worldwide, there is a pressing need for enhanced public health strategies focusing on prevention. This comprehensive narrative review presents an overview of HPV in men, key risk factors, and primary prevention in men. The most effective preventive measure for HPV in males is vaccination. Males at high risk for HPV include those who smoke, have human immunodeficiency …

Future Vision And Action Recommendations, Sondoss Elsawah, Melissa Haeffner, Anthony Jakeman

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Let us imagine a future world where water management is more fully integrated and supported by the science of sociohydrology and related metadisciplines. This is a vision for the future where the social, cultural, environmental, and economic values of water are explicitly considered through the lens of the science–water policy interface. The ultimate value of research will be measured by how much it supports improvements in water resources and hazards management and, in particular, completes and enriches the science–water policy interface.

A Credibility-Driven Evaluation Of A Community-Based Perinatal Substance Use Disorder Collaborative Care Model, Christina M. Jäderholm, Teshanee T. Williams, Brad M. Wipfli, Lynne C. Messer, Liana B. Winett

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction:

Effectively treating substance use disorder (SUD) during pregnancy is critical to preventing adverse health outcomes for both parents and children, including overdose death and family separation. Although evidence supports investing in parental recovery through comprehensive care and support, these approaches remain under-examined, with community perspectives often marginalized due to evaluation challenges. This study evaluated the Substance Use Network (SUN) program, a community-based perinatal SUD recovery model in North Carolina.MethodsWe used a patient-focused journey mapping approach to assess participant engagement, health outcomes, and alignment between participant and provider experiences. The evaluation used a mixed-methods approach, incorporating participant medical record review …

Practice Research Collaboratives: Promising Communities Of Research?, Sidsel Natland, Bowen Mcbeath, Heidi Muurinen, Marianne Wyder, Mike Austin

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: This article reflects an analysis of the establishment and development of the Practice Research Collaborative on Organizational Supports (PRC-OS) within the International Community of Practice Research. The basic thesis concerns the importance of building intersecting special interest groups to form communities of research practice.

Methods: The study is a qualitative case study, consisting of diverse data as written documents, field notes, and participative observation. A thematic and abductive analysis was conducted.

Results: Sharing of practices and knowledge, values and ethos are important factors to develop the PRC-OS, as is also negotiations on participation and organization. These themes are intertwined …

Framework And Methodology For Risk-Based Bridge And Tunnel Asset Management: Risk-Based Asset Ranking And Corridor Prioritization, David Y. Yang, Arash Khosravifar, Diane Moug, Avinash Unnikrishnan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report presents the results of Phase II of the project, "Framework and Methodology for Risk-based Bridge and Tunnel Asset Management". The research was carried out at Portland State University in collaboration with engineers and officials at the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Using the framework and methodology developed in Phase I of the project, the primary goal of Phase II is to showcase the practical application in risk-based asset management. In particular, the report includes the following two case studies: Case Study I — Weighted hazard scenarios for seismic risk assessment of Oregon Highway …

First-Principles Theory Of Five-And Six-Phonon Scattering, Yi Xia

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

igher-order phonon scatterings beyond fourth order remain largely unexplored despite their potential importance in strongly anharmonic materials at elevated temperatures. We develop a theoretical formalism for first-principles calculation of five- and six-phonon scatterings using Green’s function techniques based on a diagrammatic formalism, and systematically investigate multi-phonon interactions in Si, MgO, and BaO from room temperature to near melting points. Our calculations reveal dramatically different material-dependent behaviors: while five- and six-phonon processes remain negligible in Si even at high temperatures, they become increasingly important in MgO near its melting point (3100 K) and in BaO at intermediate temperatures (1200 K). Most …

Building Oregon's Statewide Multimodal Transportation Inventory With Ai And Interagency Collaboration, Ben Stabler, Theresa Conley

PSU Transportation Seminars

ODOT and 48+ local agencies are collaborating on the development of a multimodal data set for transportation planning within metropolitan areas. Revisions to Oregon's Transportation Planning Rules (TPR) set in motion the need for more multimodal data and analysis in local plans. The multimodal data inventory includes vehicle and freight facilities, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, transit facilities, and other relevant data such as key destinations and crashes. Starting from the local agency GIS systems and supplemented with real world use of AI for developing bicycle and pedestrian facilities, the team is defining and constructing a shared statewide multimodal data set. …

Friends In Our Lives: Perspectives Of Young People Who Participated In A Professional Mentoring Program, Kristian Jones, Karryn Satchell, Lakindra Mitchell Dove, Julissa Muñiz, Erik Hulman, J Mark Eddy, Kevin Haggerty, Deborah Cohen, Martie Skinner, Koren Hanson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mentoring programs are popular interventions to support holistic development for young people. One specific model of mentoring that has emerged over the past few decades in the United States is professional mentoring. Research has illustrated that this model of mentoring may be particularly helpful for young people who could benefit from extra support in their lives that a volunteer mentoring program does not have the capacity to provide. Despite the emerging utilization of professional mentoring programs, little is known about the ideal characteristics of a professional mentor and young people's experiences in these professional mentoring programs. This study interviewed 12 …

Ambient Air Pollution And The Sex Ratio At Birth: A Systematic Review And Narrative Synthesis., Ursula Gazeley, Hallie Eilerts-Spinelli, Jasmin Abdel Ghany, Ana Bonell, Joshua Wilde

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Ambient air pollution is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as stillbirth, miscarriage, and preterm birth. However, its effects on the viability, implantation, and survival of conceptuses-largely unobserved before the clinical detection of pregnancy-remain poorly understood. Shifts in the sex ratio at birth (SRB) provide a sensitive, population-level indicator of sex-biased conception and pregnancy loss. This systematic review examined whether maternal exposure to ambient air pollution before conception and during pregnancy is associated with deviations in the SRB. We searched MEDLINE, Embase, and Global Health from inception to 12 February 2025 for observational studies assessing both ambient air pollution exposure …

Justice Impacted Mothers: An Autoethnographic Study Exploring The Impacts Of Quality Prison Visitation With Children, Sarah E. Gore

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

This study explores the impacts of in-person visitation at correctional facilities and how the quality of this contact affects relationships between justice impacted mothers and their children. Little is known about these nuanced lived experiences as revealed by qualitative data and from someone who is mothering during incarceration. The literature on maternal incarceration is vast, but relies heavily on quantitative data. Existing research indicates facility visits, particularly those of high quality, offer constructive benefits such as reductions in maternal recidivism rates. However, separation during incarceration has shown higher risks for adolescent substance abuse, behavioral, and academic struggles. This study expands …

Plan For Institutional Vitality And Organizational Transformation (Pivot), Office Of Academic Affairs, Research And Graduate Studies, Richard Tankersley, Shelly Chabon

Office of Academic Affairs Publications

This plan from Portland State University's Office of Academic Affairs and Research & Graduate Studies sets out the design of PIVOT, a multi-year initiative launched in response to a projected $35 million structural deficit. It states PIVOT's goals and guiding principles, reviews lessons from the university's prior budget reduction process (including concerns raised by the Faculty Senate), and describes planned modes of engagement and communication. The plan organizes the review into two parallel tracks. Track 1 evaluates academic programs across five evidence domains (student success, market demand, financial performance, mission alignment, and organizational viability) and classifies them as Grow, Sustain, …

Digging Deeper With Deep Ram Networks, Andrew J. Wagner

Dissertations and Theses

While Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have driven major breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, their internal complexity often makes their behavior hard to explain, resulting in the well-known “black box” dilemma. This thesis addresses the challenge of interpretability in DNNs and deep reinforcement learning (DRL) through two main contributions.

In Part I, we revisit and extend the use of Deep RAM Networks (DRNs) within the Arcade Learning Environment (ALE), showing that, with modern architectures and careful hyperparameter tuning, RAM-based agents can achieve performance competitive with established pixel-based baselines on Atari 2600 games, while offering additional advantages for research and analysis. We also …

Communities Of Practice: Aging, Emergency Management, And Churches In Rural Clackamas County, Oregon, Lukas Robert Aberle

Dissertations and Theses

As the population of the United States ages, questions arise of how to best care for older adults in daily life and emergency situations. This research looks at the daily activities of churches to see how they affect everyday and emergency care practices. As a collaboration with Clackamas County government, I researched the relationship between churches and care through participant observation and interviews during the summer of 2024 to understand congregations’ support for older members, the role of church congregations in emergency management, and the implications of the decline in religious participation alongside aging in the United States. I found …

Hybrid Publishing And The Legacy Memoir: A New Model For Preservation, Julie Kanta

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

This research investigates the advantages and limitations of hybrid publishing models for legacy-focused memoirs that integrate written narratives with visual ephemera. As traditional publishers prioritize commercial viability and self-publishing platforms present technical challenges for complex projects, legacy memoir authors face unique obstacles in preserving personal histories with professional quality while maintaining creative control.

Through an analysis of industry standards, case studies of published legacy memoirs, and an examination of current publishing models, this study identifies how hybrid publishing can address the specialized needs of legacy memoir authors in ways that traditional and self-publishing models cannot fully accommodate. The research contributes …

Faith Vs. Morality: Do Viewpoints Of Protestant Christians Attending Psu Align With Anti-Transgender Legislation Being Proposed In Oregon?, Asher Schneider

University Honors Theses

Transgender-identifying individuals living within the US face significantly higher rates of discrimination and harassment compared to the general US population. Recently, there have been thousands of legislative measures introduced with the intent of limiting the rights of Transgender and other LGBTQ identifying individuals. Christian Americans are significantly more likely than irreligious Americans to be against various rights for Transgender people, such as the ability to participate in sports or use restrooms that correlate with their self-identified gender rather than their biological sex. Research indicates that recent anti-transgender legislative measures introduced in several states is in part driven by the large …

Cul3 Postnatal Homozygous Deletion In Forebrain Results In Behavioral Differences, Prathibha Sekar, Qiang‐Qiang Xia, Alex C. Stokes, Feiyu Quan, Jeffrey Singer, Craig M. Powell

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Large-scale human genetic studies implicate multiple genes that regulate protein ubiquitination in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). De novo loss-of-function mutations in the gene CULLIN3 (CUL3) are implicated in autism and intellectual disability (ID). CUL3 is an essential component of an E3 ubiquitin ligase complex required for ubiquitination of substrates, often a signal for proteasomal degradation. Homozygous deletion of Cul3 is embryonically lethal. Recent studies show heterozygous deletion of Cul3 results in phenotypes with some face validity for autism in constitutive and conditional Cul3 heterozygotes. To understand the function of Cul3 in late postnatal development and function in the brain, we …

Recovery Of Daily Water Levels In The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, 1915–2023, Serena B. Lee, Steven Dykstra, Reyna Gomez‐Sanchez, Cole Wilkenson, Ricardo Estrada, Nick Mcguire, David A. Jay, Stefan A. Talke

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This manuscript documents the data rescue, digitization, and quality assurance of archival daily maximum and minimum water levels at twenty-five sites within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The records encompass 1846 total unique years, where 915 years are newly digitized from the 1915–1985 era. The period of record for each gauge location varies from 40 to 109years (median=80 years). Quality assurance procedures and datum corrections were applied to both archival and digital records to generate a time series referenced to a common geocentric datum. Both riverine and coastal influences on mean sea level and great diurnal range are evident in the …

Exploring Impacts Of Diversity Ideologies On Allyship (Intergroup Responsiveness), Fiona Nguyen

Dissertations and Theses

Colorblindness and multiculturalism are widely studied diversity ideologies that reflect prominent attitudes about how diversity should be understood and managed, as they can help predict individual behavior. Colorblindness proposes that distinct group identities should be ignored, and can be used to exclude minoritized groups and downplay racial minorities' experiences, whereas multiculturalism embraces and values group differences, can foster inclusive environments for minority groups, and leads to positive intergroup outcomes such as reduced prejudice. Despite much research dedicated to exploring the intergroup outcomes of diversity ideologies, few studies have examined their impacts on specific interpersonal interactions, particularly allyship. Research has defined …

Freer Arrows And Why You Need Them In Haskell, Grant Vandomelen, Gan Shen, Lindsey Kupur, Yao Li

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Freer monads are a useful structure commonly used in various domains due to their expressiveness. However, a known issue with freer monads is that they are not amenable to static analysis. This paper explores freer arrows, a relatively expressive structure that is amenable to static analysis. We propose several variants of freer arrows. We conduct a case study on choreographic programming to demonstrate the usefulness of freer arrows in Haskell.

Understanding Covid-19 Message Fatigue And Reactance In A Post-Crisis Context, Lillian Hamilton Mantel

Dissertations and Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted widespread public health messaging encouraging behaviors such as vaccination, mask-wearing, and staying home when sick. However, persistent exposure to these messages has sometimes produced unintended effects, including message fatigue and psychological reactance. Drawing on psychological reactance theory (PRT) and the integrative model of behavioral prediction (IMBP), this study examines the relationships between message fatigue, psychological reactance, and behavioral intentions toward three COVID-19 preventive behaviors: vaccination, masking, and staying home when sick. A survey of 348 U.S. adults assessed participants' levels of message fatigue, psychological reactance, attitudes, perceived norms, self-efficacy, response efficacy, collective efficacy, and behavioral intentions. …

Beyond Opacity: Distributed Ledger Technology As A Catalyst For Carbon Credit Market Integrity, Stanton Heister, Felix Kin Peng Hui, David Ian Wilson, Yaakov Anker

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

The 2015 Paris Agreement paved the way for the carbon trade economy, which has since evolved but has not attained a substantial magnitude. While carbon credit exchange is a critical mechanism for achieving global climate targets, it faces persistent challenges related to transparency, double-counting, and verification. This paper examines how Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) can address these limitations by providing immutable transaction records, automated verification through digitally encoded smart contracts, and increased market efficiency. To assess DLT’s strategic potential for leveraging the carbon markets and, more explicitly, whether its implementation can reduce transaction costs and enhance market integrity, three alternative …

Collaborative Anti-Racist Perinatal Care: A Case Study Of The Healthy Birth Initiatives–Providence Health System Partnership, Roberta Hunte, Susanne Klawetter, Monique Gill, Desha Reed-Holden, Kevin Cherry

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article describes a case study of the partnership between Healthy Birth Initiatives, a community-based organization (CBO) and Black-led public health nurse home visiting program, and the maternal health division of the Providence Health System located in the Pacific Northwest. This study’s purpose was to explore the formation, significance, and impact of this partnership from the perspectives of staff and leadership members from both organizations. We conducted a case study through qualitative interviews with staff, participant observation, and debrief of leadership meetings. We completed a hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis of the data, followed by member checking with study participants and …

Industries, Self-Rated Health, And Status Characteristics: An Exploration Of Health In Industries At The Intersection Of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, And Disability, Emmanuel Legarreta

Dissertations and Theses

While industries, occupations, and health outcomes have been widely studied, research has neglected self-rated health (SRH) and the intersectionality of different status characteristics in various industries. Using an IPUMS version of the Current Population Survey, this study explores the possible relationships between industries and SRH. More specifically, it seeks to find if workers' disability status, racial minority status, or gender moderates (i.e., differentiates) the relationship between their industry and SRH. Findings show that certain industries are significant predictors of SRH, and that women with disabilities working in Mining and Construction, and Business and Repair Service have significantly worse SRH than …

Postsurgical Pain, Psychosocial Functioning, And Cannabis Use Among Adolescents And Young Adults Undergoing Gender Affirming Surgery, Eleanor Battison, Emily A. Kenyon, Corrin Murphy, Eline Lenne, Danielle N. Moyer, Sarah W. Feldstein Ewing, Anna C. Wilson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: Little is known about transgender and gender expansive (TGE) adolescents and young adults (AYAs) pain and psychosocial experiences in the acute postsurgical period following gender-affirming surgery (GAS). This study describes pain symptomatology and psychosocial functioning within 1 month after GAS among TGE AYAs, examines immediate postsurgical associations of cannabis use with pain symptomatology, pain catastrophizing, and psychosocial functioning, and explores pain persistence, cannabis use, and psychosocial functioning in a subgroup of individuals 6 months after surgery.

Methods: AYAs (N = 64) underwent GAS at a large academic medical center in the Pacific Northwest between March 2019 and June …

Exploring Underrepresented Stem Undergraduates' Stem Identity Development: The Role Of Social Partners, Sandy Cerda-Lezama

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation employs a three-study qualitative design to investigate the role of mentorship and social interaction in the identity development of racial minority undergraduate students in STEM disciplines. Grounded in Communities of Practice theory, this research amplifies student narratives to elucidate the relational and contextual factors that inform science identity, belonging, competence, and persistence in higher education. Study One draws upon interview data from fifteen participants in the BUILD program to analyze the role of recognition, particularly from expert scientists--in students' science identity development. This study aims to understand how racial and ethnic identity intersections influence the processes and impact …

Dilemmas Encountered While Planning Social And/Or Political Elementary Mathematics Tasks, Amanda Sugimoto, Simon Byeonguk Han, Courtney Koestler, Eva Thanheiser, Mathew Felton-Koestler, Molly Robinson

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

A mathematical task rooted in social and/or political contexts has the potential to engage students in exploring their own real-ities and learning about the realities of others while building their mathematical knowledge. While there are planning and in-structional practices recommended for these types of tasks, no single practice can fully capture the nuances and challenges thatteachers might encounter. Therefore, this study identified dilemmas encountered by a team of mathematics education research-ers while planning a mathematical task rooted in social and/or political contexts. Using qualitative analysis, the researchersidentified three planning dilemmas: (a) what social and/or political goal to establish, (b) how …

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi As Key Drivers Of Plant Resilience: Mechanisms Of Stress Adaptation In Saline Environments, Rayna Elizabeth Koberstein

Dissertations and Theses

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play a critical role in mediating plant responses to environmental stress, yet their ecological significance in saline wetland restoration remains underexplored. This greenhouse experiment investigated the effects of salinity, root-zone barrier type (solid, mesh, none), and neighboring species identity on AMF colonization and physiological responses in three native estuarine plants: Carex densa, Juncus patens, and Scirpus microcarpus. Results demonstrated species-specific physiological responses to salinity, with Juncus patens showing greater resilience in maintaining photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/Fm) and percent cover at higher salinity levels, while Scirpus microcarpus exhibited a significant decline. Mesh barriers, which permitted …

(De)Centralized Water Futures: Key Dimensions Of Infrastructure, Governance, And Operations, Alicia Dailey Cooperman, Jenny Linder Rempel, Ellis Adjei Adams, Alida Cantor, Manuela Muñoz Fuerte, Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey, Nicole J. Wilson, Cassandra L. Workman, Melissa Beresford, Leila M. Harris, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water system centralization and decentralization have variously been promoted as key to achieving household water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We argue that the lack of specificity with which scholars and practitioners use the terms centralization and decentralization limits our understanding of different water system configurations and their impacts. In this Primer, we provide a framework for thinking about levels of (de)centralization across three linked system dimensions: infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance. We encourage those analyzing water systems to characterize (de)centralization with respect to these multiple dimensions, as well as the system's broader political-economic and hydro-climatic contexts. Emphasizing …

Aphasia In South Asian Languages (Asal) Project: A Protocol Of Connected Speech Tasks For Investigating Cross-Linguistic Grammatical Profiles In Aphasia For South Asian Languages, Arpita Bose, Sakshi Bhatia, Lakshmi Venkatesh, Sayantani Banerjee, Gurujegan Murugesan, Sunila John, Sakshi Upadhyay, Manaswita Dutta, Mythili Menon, Danielle Fahey, Multiple Additional Authors

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Languages vary in their syntactic (e.g. word order in sentences), lexical (e.g. presence of specific word classes), and morphological (e.g. inflectional or derivational forms of words) properties. This cross-linguistic variation in language typology influences the manifestation of agrammatic symptoms. However, most theoretical models of agrammatism are based on English and a few European languages, limiting their generalizability. This narrow focus neglects the rich syntactic, lexical and morphological variations available in languages globally. Clinically, the lack of language-specific characteristics of agrammatic impairments limits translational potential for precise and improved diagnosis. The Aphasia in South Asian Languages (ASAL) project addresses this …