Digital Commons Network^™

Cyclic Behavior Of Screen Grid Insulated Concrete Form Components, Carl Scott Werner

Dissertations and Theses

The principle of sustainability in the built environment has become much more significant in the past decade, resulting in a push to develop building systems that are more energy efficient, durable, and use fewer natural resources. For residential and light commercial buildings, insulated concrete forms (ICF) have enjoyed increasing popularity for their ability to meet these new demands. ICFs are a stay-in-place concrete formwork system for building structural walls that are also highly insulated, among other benefits. Screen-grid ICFs (SGICF) are a small subset of ICFs that tend to use less concrete than standard ICFs and are sometimes made of …

Child Welfare Workforce Turnover: Frontline Workers' Experiences With Organizational Culture And Climate, And Implications For Organizational Practice, Melanie Dawn Sage

Dissertations and Theses

Public child welfare agencies experience front line worker turnover rates as high as 25% a year. Worker turnover has significant financial costs to agencies, and has been linked to negative outcomes for children in care. Prior research has linked organizational factors, such as organizational climate, culture, and supervisor satisfaction, to turnover intent in child welfare populations. This research uses an empowerment framework to turn to workers directly to answer the question, "What are the organizational factors that lead frontline child welfare workers to stay or leave the agency, and what, then, are the implications for agency administrators?" This study relies …

Stochastic Orders In Heterogeneous Samples With Applications, Maochao Xu

Dissertations and Theses

The statistics literature has mostly focused on the case when the data available is in the form of a random sample. In many cases, the observations are not identically distributed. Such samples are called heterogeneous samples. The study of heterogeneous samples is of great interest in many areas, such as statistics, econometrics, reliability engineering, operation research and risk analysis.

Stochastic orders between probability distributions is a widely studied concept. There are several kinds of stochastic orders that are used to compare different aspects of probability distributions like location, variability, skewness, dependence, etc.

In this dissertation, most of the work is …

Music And Conflict Resolution: Exploring The Utilization Of Music In Community Engagement, Mindy Kay Johnston

Dissertations and Theses

This study is based on interviews conducted with twenty-two musician-activists in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States in 2009 to explore perspectives about the role of music in community engagement with the aim of considering how music might be used in the field of conflict resolution. The study followed the qualitative approach of constructivist grounded theory as designed by Charmaz (2000, 2002). Two themes, "Music for Self," and "Music for Society" emerged from interviews and comprise the internal and external meanings of music to the research informants. The results of the study indicate that the relationships people have …

La Palabra Es Salud: A Comparative Study Of The Effectiveness Of Popular Education Vs. Traditional Education For Enhancing Health Knowledge And Skills And Increasing Empowerment Among Parish-Based Community Health Workers (Chws), Noelle Wiggins

Dissertations and Theses

Popular education is a mode of teaching and learning which seeks to bring about more equitable social conditions by creating settings in which people can identify and solve their own problems. While the public health literature offers evidence to suggest that popular education is an effective strategy for increasing empowerment and improving health, there have been no systematic attempts to compare the outcomes of popular education to those of traditional education. The goal of La Palabra es Salud was to conduct such a comparison among Latino, parish-based Community Health Workers (CHWs). The study employed a quasi-experimental design, mixed methods, and …

Scalable Event Tracking On High-End Parallel Systems, Kathryn Marie Mohror

Dissertations and Theses

Accurate performance analysis of high end systems requires event-based traces to correctly identify the root cause of a number of the complex performance problems that arise on these highly parallel systems. These high-end architectures contain tens to hundreds of thousands of processors, pushing application scalability challenges to new heights. Unfortunately, the collection of event-based data presents scalability challenges itself: the large volume of collected data increases tool overhead, and results in data files that are difficult to store and analyze. Our solution to these problems is a new measurement technique called trace profiling that collects the information needed to diagnose …

Oregon Natural Areas Plan, Oregon Natural Heritage Advisory Council

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

The rich diversity of ecosystems and native plants and animals is one of Oregon's most distinctive and valued qualities. Our state contains rain forests, dry forests, oak woodlands, alpine meadows, prairies, deserts, marshes, estuaries, dunes, rocky headlands, lakes and streams. There are a number of reasons it is so diverse. First are the extremes of climate, with rainfall ranging from over 200 inches a year along Oregon’s north coast, to less than 7 inches a year in the Alvord Desert, and temperatures from the very mild banana belt along the coast near the California border to the extremes of the …

Urban Universities: Anchors Generating Prosperity For America's Cities, Sheila A. Martin

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper articulates the value and role of urban universities as anchor institutions and engines of metropolitan success. Founded on their long-term commitment to the metropolitan areas they inhabit, the power of urban universities is magnified by strong collaboration with their traditional partners in government and the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. By expanding the number and scope of these broad-based, robust partnerships supported by targeted federal investment?urban universities can help lead our cities and metropolitan regions to long-term competitiveness, environmental sustainability, and enduring vitality as healthy, high-quality communities.

Building Capacity For Sustainability Through Curricular And Faculty Development: A Learning Outcomes Approach, Jennifer H. Allen, Jeffrey J. Gerwing, Leslie G. Mcbride

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University has made integration of sustainability across its academic programs an institutional priority. This article describes the strategies that have been used to engage faculty in developing sustainability curricula, including adopting sustainability as one of eight campus-wide learning outcomes, incorporating sustainability into the general education program, providing faculty development, and developing a Graduate Certificate in Sustainability. The article shares lessons learned and next steps planned to advance Portland State's sustainability curricula.

Curriculum Change 2010-2011, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2010-2011, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

The Transformation Of La Prueba De Los Ingenios Into Labyrinth Of Desire: Adapting Lope De Vega For A Contemporary American Audience, Delys Ostlund

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Women’s equality, cross dressing, homoerotic desire—all the makings of a twenty-firstcentury comedy—were the focus of a seventeenth century play by Lope de Vega, La prueba de los ingenios (1612?-1613?). In the last two decades, interest in this work has increased considerably. Evidence of the rising popularity of the play is an English-language adaptation by Caridad Svich, which she titled The Labyrinth of Desire. The professional production at Miracle Theatre is the focus of this study. After a brief discussion of the homoerotic theme of the work and general issues of the translation and/or adaptation of the Comedia, I will then …

Psychometric Properties Of The Pyramids And Palm Trees Test, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Heather Wright, Gilson Capilouto

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Pyramids and Palm Trees Test (PPT) is a nonverbal measure of semantic memory that has been frequently used in previous aphasia, agnosia, and dementia research. Very little psychometric information regarding the PPT is available. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the PPT in a population of healthy college students. Results indicated that the PPT achieved poor test–retest reliability, failed to obtain adequate internal consistency, and demonstrated poor convergent validity, but showed acceptable discriminant validity. The results of this study suggest that the PPT lacks acceptable reliability and validity for use with a college …

University Studies Annual Assessment 2009-2010, Portland State University. University Studies Program

University Studies Annual Assessment Reports

Annual in-depth examination and assessment of Portland State University's general education model, the University Studies Program. The tools and methods used to assess student learning are faculty driven and developed.

Working Mothers' Decisions, Experiences And Feelings About Using On-Site Childcare, Stephanie Larae Hixson-Somanchi

Dissertations and Theses

On-site childcare is an ever-increasing form of childcare. By understanding the decisions, experiences and feelings of mothers using on-site centers, informed policy decisions about viable childcare models can be made. In the broadest terms current literature reveals that economic, societal, functional, and psychological factors influence a mother's decisions in regards to using childcare. This study used these markers as the basis for the development of questions to ascertain the experiences, feelings and decisions of mothers using on-site childcare. A phenomenological method was used. Twenty-four participants using on-site childcare from four organizations in different industries were located through a snowball sample …

A Survey Of China's Logistics Industry And The Impacts Of Transport Delays On Importers And Exporters, Zeyan Zhang, Miguel Andres Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the last decades, China?s booming economy has greatly benefited from globalization and trade liberalization. China has found a niche as the world?s manufacturing centre and it is playing a crucial role in a growing number of global supply chains. This research focuses on the performance of international and domestic transport and logistics systems as perceived by Chinese importers and exporters. A broad literature review of Chinese meteoric logistics industry development is provided. Results and analysis of in?depth interviews with Chinese importers and exporters are presented. These interviews provide significant information regarding international freight transport chains, the impact of delays …

On Residual Lifetimes Of K-Out-Of-N Systems With Nonidentical Components, Subhash C. Kochar, Maochao Xu

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article, mixture representations of survival functions of residual lifetimes of k-out-of-n systems are obtained when the components are independent but not necessarily identically distributed. Then we stochastically compare the residual lifetimes of k-out-of-n systems in one- and two-sample problems. In particular, the results extend some results in Li and Zhao [14], Khaledi and Shaked [13], Sadegh [17], Gurler and Bairamov [7] and Navarro, Balakrishnan, and Samaniego [16]. Applications in the proportional hazard rates model are presented as well.

Investigating Further Preservice Teachers’ Conceptions Of Multidigit Whole Numbers: Refining A Framework, Eva Thanheiser

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study was designed to investigate preservice elementary school teachers’ (PSTs’) responses to written standard place-value-operation tasks (addition and subtraction). Previous research established that PSTs can often perform but not explain algorithms and provided a four-category framework for PSTs’ conceptions, two correct and two incorrect. Previous findings are replicated for PSTs toward the end of their college careers, and two conceptions are further analyzed to yield three categories of incorrect views of regrouped digits: (a) consistently as 1 value (all as 1 or all as 10), (b) consistently within but not across contexts (i.e., all as 10 in addition but …

Engaging A Systems Approach To Evaluate Domestic Violence Intervention With Abusive Men: Reassessing The Role Of Community, Courtenay Silvergleid Wallpe

Dissertations and Theses

The domestic violence movement has had remarkable success illuminating the scope, prevalence and consequences of battering, but has been more limited in its ability to successfully intervene and prevent abuse of women by their intimate male partners. Surprisingly, there has been little research directed at understanding why intervention strategies with perpetrators are only minimally effective. Studies have focused on assessing the degree to which and for whom individual components such as arrest, prosecution and psycho-educational programs for abusive men are successful, but few explorations have attempted to describe limitations and challenges to the domestic violence intervention 'system as a whole'. …

Pvw: Designing Virtual World Server Infrastructure, Francis Chang, C. Mic Bowman, Wu-Chi Feng

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents a high level overview of PVW (Partitioned Virtual Worlds), a distributed system architecture for the management of virtual worlds. PVW is designed to support arbitrarily large and complex virtual worlds while accommodating dynamic and highly variable user population and content distribution density. The PVW approach enables the task of simulating and managing the virtual world to be distributed over many servers by spatially partitioning the environment into a hierarchical structure. This structure is useful both for balancing the simulation load across many nodes, as well as features such as geometric simplification and distribution of dynamic content.

Portland Roasting Company: Farm Friendly Direct, Madeleine E. Pullman, Brandon Arends, Mark Langston, Greg Price, Greg Stokes

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

This case describes the issues and dilemmas facing a company in their efforts to differentiate their product through a social sustainability programme. Over the years, the company has built a strong reputation with their sustainability efforts, particularly amongst their peers in the specialty coffee industry. There is some question as to whether this reputation has been visible to consumers and if consumers see the value-proposition. The case covers the history of coffee, the specialty coffee industry, the supply chain and roles of different participants, and the competitive landscape.

Furthermore, most of the competitive eco-labels and certification schemes are discussed. The …

Symmetry And Stability Of Homogeneous Flocks, J. J. P. Veerman

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The study of the movement of flocks, whether biological or technological, is motivated by the desire to understand the capability of coherent motion of a large number of agents that only receive very limited information. In a biological flock a large group of animals seek their course while moving in a more or less fixed formation. It seems reasonable that the immediate course is determined by leaders at the boundary of the flock. The others follow: what is their algorithm? The most popular technological application consists of cars on a one-lane road. The light turns green and the lead car …

Selective Fluorescence Detection Of Cysteine And N-Terminal Cysteine Peptide Residues, Soojin Lim, Jorge O. Escobedo, Mark Lowry, Xiangyang Xu, Robert M. Strongin

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

A new fluorogenic fluorescein derivative containing an α,β-unsaturated aldehyde moiety produces a selective fluorescent signal enhancement in the presence of cysteine or peptides containing N-terminal cysteine residues. The mechanism is based on synergistic covalent and supramolecular interactions.

Policy Responses To The Closure Of Manufactured Home Parks In Oregon, Andrée Tremoulet

Dissertations and Theses

This is a case study about policy responses to a specific form of gentrification at the urban fringe: the closure of manufactured home parks in Oregon.

The study analyzes the following research questions: (a) What factors affected the quantity and distribution of manufactured home parks? (b) Why did parks close? (c) How did the state legislature respond and why? (d) What are the likely impacts of the state response? A wide variety of sources (e.g., key informant interviews, observations of meetings and public hearings, focus groups of park residents, archival materials and secondary data about manufactured home parks) are employed …

An Environment-Based Education Approach To Professional Development: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of The Creeks And Kids Watershed Workshop And Its Impact On K-12 Teachers, Tiffany Bridgette Austin

Dissertations and Theses

This research is an in-depth study of an environment-based education (EBE) professional development program titled "Creeks and Kids" that models how to employ thematic instruction about watersheds using the environment of a school and its community as a context to integrate teaching and learning about water across core subject areas. This case study investigates the EBE characteristics of the Creeks and Kids Workshop and explores how they adhere to the National Research Council's Standards for Professional Development for Teachers of Science. A mixed-methods analysis gathered qualitative data about the overall experience of teacher-participants during the Creeks and Kids Workshop and …

Organic Particulate Matter Formation At Varying Relative Humidity Using Surrogate Secondary And Primary Organic Compounds With Activity Corrections In The Condensed Phase Obtained Using A Method Based On The Wilson Equation, James F. Pankow, E. I. Chang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation in the atmosphere is currently often modeled using a multiple lumped "two-product" (N · 2p) approach. The N · 2p approach neglects: 1) variation of activity coefficient (i) values and mean molecular weight MW in the particulate matter (PM) phase; 2) water uptake into the PM; and 3) the possibility of phase separation in the PM. This study considers these effects by adopting an (N ·2p)pMW, approach (is a phase index). Specific chemical structures are assigned to 25 lumped SOA compounds and to 15 representative primary organic aerosol (POA) compounds to allow calculation of i …

Portland State University Climate Action Plan, 2010, Fletcher Beaudoin, Noelle Studer-Spevak

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

In June 2007, Portland State University (PSU) joined this effort by signing the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). The commitment challenged PSU to form a committee to oversee climate efforts, track carbon emissions, and develop a Climate Action Plan (CAP) to move toward carbon neutrality. This document fulfills the final requirement for ACUPCC and supports regional climate goals of partner agencies, such as those described in the 2009 City of Portland and Multnomah County Climate Action Plan.

The Transnational Networks Of Cultural Commodities: Peruvian Food In San Francisco, Kelsey Ann Brain

Dissertations and Theses

In a setting of increased movement, communication, and flows across space, commodity chain networks bring valued cultural commodities to transnational communities. This research examines the networks bringing foreign cuisine ingredients to Peruvian transnational communities in San Francisco, California. It seeks to answer three inter-related questions: 1) What are the origins and transportation networks bringing Peruvian food items to San Francisco; 2) Who controls and benefits from the movement of this food and resulting capital; and 3) How do networks vary for different classes of end consumers?

Chefs of ten Peruvian restaurants and ten Peruvian migrants in the San Francisco area …

Designing Exhibits For Gender Equity, Toni Nicole Dancu

Dissertations and Theses

Gender equity has been a national and global aim for over half a century (Ceci & Williams, 2007; National Center for Education Statistics, 2003; National Science Board, 2008). While gains have been made, one area where inequity remains is spatial reasoning ability, where a large gender gap in favor of males has persisted over the years (Else-Quest, Linn, & Shibley Hyde, 2010; National Science Board, 2008; Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006). This gender gap in spatial reasoning has had substantial societal impact on the career interests of females in areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), contributing to the …

Identifying Factors Associated With Falls In Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Survivors: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach, Kerri M. Winters-Stone, Britta Torgrimson, Fay Horak, Alvin Eisner, Lillian Nail, Micahel C. Leo, Steve Chui, Shiuh-Wen Luoh

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective—To identify neuromuscular, balance and vision factors that contribute to falls in recently treated breast cancer survivors (BCS) and explore links between fall risk factors and cancer treatment

Design—Case-control plus prospective observation

Setting—Comprehensive cancer center

Participants—BCS within two years chemotherapy completion and/or on adjuvant endocrine therapy (N=59; mean age: 58 yrs)

Intervention—not applicable

Main outcome measures—Objective measures of postural control, vision and neuromuscular function included 1) a sensory organization test (SOT), 2) a visual assessment battery, 3) muscle mass by DXA, and 4) neuromuscular function with strength by repetition maximum, power by timed stair …