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Exploration Of Weather Impacts On Freeway Traffic Operations And Safety Using High-Resolution Weather Data, Chengyu Dai Jan 2011

Exploration Of Weather Impacts On Freeway Traffic Operations And Safety Using High-Resolution Weather Data, Chengyu Dai

Dissertations and Theses

Adverse weather is considered as one of the important factors contributing to injuries and severe crashes. During rainy conditions, it can reduce travel visibility, increase stopping distance, and create the opportunity hydroplaning. This study quantified the relative crash risk on Oregon 217 southbound direction under rainy conditions by using a match-paired approach, applied one-year traffic data, crash data and NEXRAD Level II radar weather data. There are 26 crashes occurred in match-paired weather conditions for Oregon 217 in year 2007. The results of this study indicate that a higher crash risk and a higher property-damage-only crash risk occurred during rainy …

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Sustainable Event Management Of Music Festivals: An Event Organizer Perspective, Stephanie L. Stettler Jan 2011

Sustainable Event Management Of Music Festivals: An Event Organizer Perspective, Stephanie L. Stettler

Dissertations and Theses

Sustainably managed music festivals have significant value and can provide a multitude of benefits to a healthy, sustainable and desirable society if their negative impacts are mitigated and positive impacts cultivated. To reach this great potential, sustainable event management of music festivals must become widely adopted and expanded as common practice. To drive this improvement of sustainable event management, there is a need to first understand the barriers and success factors event organizers face moving their music festivals toward sustainability. This study uses a research design of mixed quantitative-qualitative methods: a survey of thirty diverse music festival organizers across the …

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The Pursuit Of Commerce: Agricultural Development In Western Oregon, 1825-1861, Cessna R. Smith Jan 2011

The Pursuit Of Commerce: Agricultural Development In Western Oregon, 1825-1861, Cessna R. Smith

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines how the pursuit of commercial gain affected the development of agriculture in western Oregon's Willamette, Umpqua, and Rogue River Valleys. The period of study begins when the British owned Hudson's Bay Company began to farm land in and around Fort Vancouver in 1825, and ends in 1861--during the time when agrarian settlement was beginning to expand east of the Cascade Mountains. Given that agriculture in Oregon, as elsewhere, would eventually reach a standard of national development, and given that most of Oregon's immigrants arrived poor and lacked the farm implements needed for subsistence, the question this study …

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Coupled Pedagogy: A Study Of Sustainability Education And Community-Based Learning In The Senior Capstone Program At Portland State University, Emily Erin Bowling Jan 2011

Coupled Pedagogy: A Study Of Sustainability Education And Community-Based Learning In The Senior Capstone Program At Portland State University, Emily Erin Bowling

Dissertations and Theses

Sustainability has emerged in mainstream higher education over the last few years, and the fields of community-based learning and sustainability education are closely linked through their emphases on active, experiential learning in place-based contexts. In order to create ecologically literate citizens to more adequately address environmental problems, there is a logical connection between teaching about sustainability and engaging students in the community, which can serve as a relevant forum to address sustainability issues. However, there is a problem in that educational programs and courses dealing directly with sustainability topics across the higher education landscape often do not emphasize or include …

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Conflict-Conditioned Communication: A Case Study Of Communicative Relations Between The United States And Iran From 2005-2008, Erin Leigh Mckee Jan 2011

Conflict-Conditioned Communication: A Case Study Of Communicative Relations Between The United States And Iran From 2005-2008, Erin Leigh Mckee

Dissertations and Theses

In protracted international conflicts, truth is often sacrificed in the name of victory. Political realists see international politics as a competition to win power, retain power, and demonstrate power; misleading the enemy in the name of strategy and misleading the public in the name of security are necessary elements of the game. A less obvious condition is that those caught in the cycle of intergroup conflict also withhold truths from themselves. This denial of truth and reality--to the Other, to the public, and to the self--is especially prevalent in the communicative relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republic …

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Teaching Intonation Patterns Through Reading Aloud, Micah William Park Jan 2011

Teaching Intonation Patterns Through Reading Aloud, Micah William Park

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated whether East Asian learners of English (n=8) studying in the US acquired more accurate intonation patterns (compared to native-speaker norms) after receiving five weeks of tutoring focusing on four basic intonation patterns (definite statements, wh-questions, yes/no questions, and tag questions) and using oral reading as the primary practice technique. The study also assessed the students' affective reaction to the teaching method through interviews. The study found that the learners significantly improved their intonational accuracy (based on the judgments of three native speakers who listened to single-sentence recordings [n=868] from questionnaires, exit interviews, and pre- and post-tests) and …

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Scalable And Efficient Tasking For Dynamic Sensor Networks, Thanh Xuan Dang Jan 2011

Scalable And Efficient Tasking For Dynamic Sensor Networks, Thanh Xuan Dang

Dissertations and Theses

Sensor networks including opportunistic networks of sensor-equipped smartphones as well as networks of embedded sensors can enable a wide range of applications including environmental monitoring, smart grids, intelligent transportation, and healthcare. In most real-world applications, to meet end-user requirements, the network operator needs to define and update the sensors' tasks dynamically, such as updating the parameters for sensor data collection or updating the sensors' code. Tasking sensor networks is necessary to reduce the effort in programming sensor networks. However, it is challenging due to dynamics and scale in terms of number of nodes, number of tasks, and sensing regions of …

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Transforming The Soul Of Education: Sustainability At The Center Of Teaching And Learning In Secondary Schools, Thomas Eugene Kane Jan 2011

Transforming The Soul Of Education: Sustainability At The Center Of Teaching And Learning In Secondary Schools, Thomas Eugene Kane

Dissertations and Theses

Humanity is facing problems on a scale never before encountered. This dissertation traces the roots of modern culture's destructive relationship to the planet with its habits of over-consumption and exceeding the limits of the planet's ecological systems. Educational institutions are embedded in and replicate an unsustainable culture. As educational leaders, we need to challenge a system that is morally and ecologically bankrupt while providing a path toward sustainability at the center of teaching and learning. Using a narrative scholarship approach and theoretical frameworks drawn from ecological thinking and place-based learning, this dissertation provides models for transforming secondary education. While critiquing …

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Information Processing In Two-Dimensional Cellular Automata, Martin Cenek Jan 2011

Information Processing In Two-Dimensional Cellular Automata, Martin Cenek

Dissertations and Theses

Cellular automata (CA) have been widely used as idealized models of spatially-extended dynamical systems and as models of massively parallel distributed computation devices. Despite their wide range of applications and the fact that CA are capable of universal computation (under particular constraints), the full potential of these models is unrealized to-date. This is for two reasons: (1) the absence of a programming paradigm to control these models to solve a given problem and (2) the lack of understanding of how these models compute a given task. This work addresses the notion of computation in two-dimensional cellular automata. Solutions using a …

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Foreign Language Teaching In U.S. Higher Education Classrooms: An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Teacher Pedagogical Beliefs And Classroom Teaching, Shaojuan Lin Jan 2011

Foreign Language Teaching In U.S. Higher Education Classrooms: An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Teacher Pedagogical Beliefs And Classroom Teaching, Shaojuan Lin

Dissertations and Theses

Previous research indicates that former schooling is an important factor to shape teachers' beliefs about teaching; teachers change the way they teach when their beliefs about foreign language teaching change. However, little research has discovered direct evidence concerning the processes that effect change in teacher beliefs. This study investigated the relationship between teachers' pedagogical paradigms and practices in Chinese language classrooms. Specifically, a qualitative analysis of educated teachers born in China examined how early pedagogical frames were formed, and then transformed in the context of American classrooms. Results of this study indicate that early schooling, language learning, and initial teaching …

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Scaffolding The Development Of Early Self-Regulation: The Role Of Structure And Routine In Children's Daily Activities, Cynthia Lynn Taylor Jan 2011

Scaffolding The Development Of Early Self-Regulation: The Role Of Structure And Routine In Children's Daily Activities, Cynthia Lynn Taylor

Dissertations and Theses

Learning to self-regulate one's behavior is a core developmental task in early childhood. Regulation of behavior is a challenge for young children largely due to cognitive constraints, specifically in the areas of attention and memory. As such, it has been theorized that both caregivers and a child's environment can support the development of behavioral self-regulation by providing cues as to what constitutes acceptable behavior in any given context. Although much research has been conducted on the role caregivers play in this regard, little is known about how a child's environment may also serve to support emerging self-regulation of behavior. The …

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From Blooming Judicial Philosophies To Castrated Legislation: Sexuality, Desire, And Nominations To The Supreme Court Of The United States, Adam Michael Mcmahon Jan 2011

From Blooming Judicial Philosophies To Castrated Legislation: Sexuality, Desire, And Nominations To The Supreme Court Of The United States, Adam Michael Mcmahon

Dissertations and Theses

Society and institutions of government reinforce norms that constrain the behavior of individuals. Heteropatriarchal norms traditionally favor the perspective of white, male, heterosexual, reason, judicial restraint, and democratic authority over their binary, and minority, counterparts: black, female, homosexual, desire, judicial activism, and individual rights. According to the theory of Queer New Institutionalism, these dichotomous pairs are mutually dependent upon each other for definition and maintenance. The perpetuation of these binarisms is made through language, often assumed and unquestioned. However, the use of sexualized language and metaphors are identified in efforts to draw suspicion and consternation for these minoritized Others. When …

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A Computational Model Of Adaptive Sensory Processing In The Electroreception Of Mormyrid Electric Fish, Eran Agmon Jan 2011

A Computational Model Of Adaptive Sensory Processing In The Electroreception Of Mormyrid Electric Fish, Eran Agmon

Dissertations and Theses

Electroreception is a sensory modality found in some fish, which enables them to sense the environment through the detection of electric fields. Biological experimentation on this ability has built an intricate framework that has identified many of the components involved in electroreception's production, but lack the framework for bringing the details back together into a system-level model of how they operate together. This thesis builds and tests a computational model of the Electrosensory Lateral Line Lobe (ELL) in mormyrid electric fish in an attempt to bring some of electroreception's structural details together to help explain its function. The ELL is …

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"An I Don't Give A Damn 'Bout My Bad Reputation": The Effects Of Family Type And Patriarchy In The Home On Female Adolescent Delinquency And Mental Health, Stephanie-Kaye Guenther Jan 2011

"An I Don't Give A Damn 'Bout My Bad Reputation": The Effects Of Family Type And Patriarchy In The Home On Female Adolescent Delinquency And Mental Health, Stephanie-Kaye Guenther

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the connection between household type and delinquency and depressive symptoms for female adolescents. The present study draws its claims from Power-control theory which, at its most abstract level, predicts gender differences in delinquency based on the level of patriarchy in the family and the theoretical works of Sarah Rosenfield, who argues that it is the over control of females that causes them to have higher rates depression than males. This study hoped to build on research that links differences in family type and parental control to sex differences in delinquency by using the Power-control theory to look …

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Marginalized Characters In Contemporary American Short Fiction, Timur Shishkin Jan 2011

Marginalized Characters In Contemporary American Short Fiction, Timur Shishkin

Dissertations and Theses

The focus of the present research work is the contemporary American short stories that bring up issues of compulsory norm and the conflict between marginalized characters and their environment. This research was based on those short stories that seemed to represent the idea of being "different" in the most complex and multilayered way, and its goal was to unfold new aspects of the conflict between "normal" and "abnormal"/"different". Variations of norm as well as diversity within the marginalized raise a number of questions about the reasons for their inability to coexist peacefully. The close reading and the analysis of the …

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The Effects Of Multiple Thematic Layers On Web Map Use By Middle School Students, Andrew Percy Freed Jan 2011

The Effects Of Multiple Thematic Layers On Web Map Use By Middle School Students, Andrew Percy Freed

Dissertations and Theses

Access to the to the Internet and to a variety of interactive mapping tools has increased interest among middle school teachers to use interactive maps in conjunction with learning activities. There is very little research in the area of interactive mapping in educational situations, specifically with regards to layer maps that combine multiple thematic layers on a single map. This study evaluates the relationship between the number of layers present on a web-based map and middle-school students' accuracy and timeliness using the map to answer geographic questions. Additionally, this study examines the specific effect of a hill shade on student …

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Perceptions Of Peacebuilding And Multi-Track Collaboration In Divided Societies For A Sustainable Peace Agreement At The Political Level: A Case Study Of Cyprus, Brooke Patricia Galloway Jan 2011

Perceptions Of Peacebuilding And Multi-Track Collaboration In Divided Societies For A Sustainable Peace Agreement At The Political Level: A Case Study Of Cyprus, Brooke Patricia Galloway

Dissertations and Theses

It is the purpose of this study to propose that perceptions of peacebuilding activities in all tracks of divided societies (political, civil society leaders, and grassroots), and the perceptions of the collaboration between the tracks are essential processes to a sustainable peace agreement at the political level. This study will examine multi-track peacebuilding and the collaboration (or lack of it) between tracks in Cyprus. Additionally, it will analyze the perceptions of the necessity of collaboration across tracks. The analysis of this study is conducted in two phases: (1) analyzing interviews with Track One diplomats and examining previous and existing peacebuilding …

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Tree Growth And Spatial Pattern In Two Forest Park Permanent Plots: A Look At Stand Composition And Condition, Hannah Beth Mcdonald Jan 2011

Tree Growth And Spatial Pattern In Two Forest Park Permanent Plots: A Look At Stand Composition And Condition, Hannah Beth Mcdonald

Dissertations and Theses

In June of 2010, two permanent research plots were established in Forest Park, based on their differing proximities to downtown Portland, Oregon. As part of a long-term ecological research project that seeks to explore the ecological status and human thumbprint on this 5,100 acre forested reserve, the 2010 tree data was investigated for emergent compositional and spatial patterns. Stand composition, tree size, growth rates, and spatial patterns were analyzed, along with ecological and land use histories. Results indicate that the Balch plot, more closely located to the urban center, has different stand composition, condition, and vegetation growth rates, compared to …

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A Comparative Case Study Of Newspaper Coverage Of The Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot/Incinerator From 1994 To 1998., Rogue Elliott Robertson Jan 2011

A Comparative Case Study Of Newspaper Coverage Of The Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot/Incinerator From 1994 To 1998., Rogue Elliott Robertson

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this case study was to compare the news coverage of The Umatilla chemical weapons by examining newspapers from different communities: The Oregonian and The Hermiston Herald. The author examines solution frames, pluralistic frames, episodic frames, and thematic frames and compares them across two newspapers. The study found the difference was not significant when comparing the use of solution frames between The Hermiston Herald and The Oregonian. In addition, there was not a significant difference in use of pluralistic framing by The Hermiston Herald and The Oregonian. However, there was a significant difference in the sources presented in …

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Scratched Petroglyphs In The Bennett Hills, Idaho, Karla Lucille Hambelton Jan 2011

Scratched Petroglyphs In The Bennett Hills, Idaho, Karla Lucille Hambelton

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines rock art sites containing scratched petroglyphs in the Bennett Hills, Idaho. Despite their research potential, scratched petroglyphs have received little attention in rock art research or literature. This study contributes valuable data to scratched rock art research and the corpus of rock art research in general. Two samples of ten scratched petroglyph sites were examined and recorded for a total of twenty petroglyph sites. Using formal and contextual research methods, multiple attributes of scratched petroglyphs are identified and analyzed. The formal qualities of scratched petroglyphs are examined to define the extent and to characterize the motif assemblage. …

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Student Approaches To Combinatorial Enumeration: The Role Of Set-Oriented Thinking, Elise Nicole Lockwood Jan 2011

Student Approaches To Combinatorial Enumeration: The Role Of Set-Oriented Thinking, Elise Nicole Lockwood

Dissertations and Theses

Combinatorics is a growing topic in mathematics with widespread applications in a variety of fields. Because of this, it has become increasingly prominent in both K-12 and undergraduate curricula. There is a clear need in mathematics education for studies that address cognitive and pedagogical issues surrounding combinatorics, particularly related to students' conceptions of combinatorial ideas. In this study, I describe my investigation of students' thinking as it relates to counting problems. I interviewed a number of post-secondary students as they solved a variety of combinatorial tasks, and through the analysis of this data I defined and elaborated a construct that …

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High Speed Wireless Networking For 60ghz, Candy Yiu Jan 2011

High Speed Wireless Networking For 60ghz, Candy Yiu

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the problem of providing high data-rate wireless connectivity to users in indoor environments. The goal is to be able to reach Gbps/user rates even when there are multiple users present. The technology that we study is to use the 60 GHz spectrum whose special propagation properties make it ideally suited to this task. The approaches developed include using multiple spatially distributed smart antennas in a room or multiple co-located antennas to provide coverage where needed and when needed. All the antennas are connected to a single access point which allows us to dynamically change spectrum and link …

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A Study Of Compensation For Face-Threatening Acts In Service Encounters In Japan And The United States, Miki Murakami Jan 2011

A Study Of Compensation For Face-Threatening Acts In Service Encounters In Japan And The United States, Miki Murakami

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines how people compensate for their inability to accommodate the needs of others in service encounters. Being unable to meet others' needs violates the positive face of one of the participants in a discourse. Many previous studies on speech acts demonstrate how people control their utterances to avoid causing a face-threatening act. However, the language behavior that follows a face-threatening act has not yet received much focus. This paper looks at two different kinds of data in Japan and the United State (hereafter "U.S.") using two different approaches: observation and role-play. In the first, the observational phase, the …

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Early Childhood Inclusion: Teacher Perception Of The Supports Needed To Fully Include Children With Special Needs, Meredith Villines Jan 2011

Early Childhood Inclusion: Teacher Perception Of The Supports Needed To Fully Include Children With Special Needs, Meredith Villines

Dissertations and Theses

Inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood settings remains a goal for many early care and education centers and professionals. In this study, the perceptions of supports needed to accomplish this goal were examined. Early childhood teachers from a university-based child care center, which is inspired by the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, were interviewed and asked to explore their feelings and thoughts on fully including children with disabilities in their classrooms. An examination of their perceptions led to the identification of four major themes: a) everyone is valuable in the classroom community, b) additional training is needed, c) …

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Improving Hypothesis Testing Skills: Evaluating A General Purpose Classroom Exercise With Biology Students In Grade 9., Michael Gregg Wilder Jan 2011

Improving Hypothesis Testing Skills: Evaluating A General Purpose Classroom Exercise With Biology Students In Grade 9., Michael Gregg Wilder

Dissertations and Theses

There is an increased emphasis on inquiry in national and Oregon state high school science standards. As hypothesis testing is a key component of these new standards, instructors need effective strategies to improve students' hypothesis testing skills. Recent research suggests that classroom exercises may prove useful. A general purpose classroom activity called the thought experiment is proposed. The effectiveness of 7 hours of instruction using this exercise was measured in an introductory biology course, using a quasi-experimental contrast group design. An instrument for measuring hypothesis testing skill is also proposed. Treatment (n=18) and control (n=10) sections drawn from preexisting high …

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Rebuilding The Architectural History Of The Fort Vancouver Village, Meredith J. Mullaley Jan 2011

Rebuilding The Architectural History Of The Fort Vancouver Village, Meredith J. Mullaley

Dissertations and Theses

In the mid-19th century, the Fort Vancouver employee Village was one of the most diverse settlements on the Pacific Coast. Trappers, tradesmen, and laborers from Europe, North America, and Hawaii worked and lived within a highly stratified colonial social structure. Their homes have been the site of archaeological research for nearly 50 years, but the architectural features and artifacts have received limited attention. Inspired by an 1845 description of the Village that described houses that were "as various in form" as their occupants, this study examined community-level social relationships in this 19th-century fur trade community through vernacular architecture and landscape. …

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Curriculum Change 2011-2012, Portland State University Jan 2011

Curriculum Change 2011-2012, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

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Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2011-2012, Portland State University Jan 2011

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2011-2012, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

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Second Language Development Theories And Technology-Mediated Language Learning, Steven L. Thorne, Bryan Smith Jan 2011

Second Language Development Theories And Technology-Mediated Language Learning, Steven L. Thorne, Bryan Smith

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Information and communication technologies have never been more interesting due in large part to their intimate integration into everyday life. Second and foreign language researchers and educators have long recognized ...

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The Institutional Development Of The American Vice Presidency, James Emory Hite Jan 2011

The Institutional Development Of The American Vice Presidency, James Emory Hite

Dissertations and Theses

The ongoing disregard for the American vice presidency, and for those who would and do hold the office, in conjunction with the scarcity of academic research devoted specifically to the development of the institution, warrants the following study. Indeed, this study is relatively novel to the existent body of political science research which ventures to evaluate the vice presidency. Generally, research and publications on the vice presidency have tended to focus on variables such as ticket-balancing and home-state advantage; critiques of individual vice presidents; and more recently, specific policy spheres where modern vice presidents have been involved. In contrast, this …

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