Digital Commons Network^™

Active Site Chemistry Of The Nadph-Dependent:7-Cyano-7-Deazaguanine (Preq0) Nitrile Oxidoreductase, An Enzyme Involved In Queuosine Biosynthesis, Bobby Wai Keung Lee

Dissertations and Theses

Queuosine (Q) is a modified nucleoside found at the wobble position of bacterial and eukaryotic transfer RNAs (tRNAs) that are specific for the amino acids tyrosine, histidine, aspartate and asparagine. A recently discovered enzyme in the biosynthetic pathway of Q, the NADPH-dependent 7-cyano-7-deazaguanine oxidoreductase (QueF), carries out the two-fold, four-electron reduction of Q precursor preQ0 to preQ1 and represents the first example of the enzymatic conversion of the nitrile functional group to an amine. Presented herein are kinetic, spectroscopic, mutational, biophysical, and isotope labeling studies directed at the elucidation of the chemical and kinetic mechanisms of this new class of …

Primary Care, Males, Masculinity, And Suicide : A Grounded Theory Study, John Thomas Casey

Dissertations and Theses

Suicide completion in the United States is a public health problem that claims over 30,000 lives annually. Most of these suicide victims are white males who die by firearm, and who typically are not taking antidepressant medication and are not involved in mental health treatment at the time of death. Depression is closely linked to suicide death, and treatment for depression is provided mainly within primary health care settings where most suicide decedents have been seen at some point in the year prior to their death. The rate of male depression is likely under-reported, partly due to gender-bias within primary …

A Systematic Approach To Developing National Technology Policy And Strategy For Emerging Technologies, Pisek Gerdsri

Dissertations and Theses

As the pace of global competition increases, a country's competitiveness becomes of greater concern. Technology drives competitiveness and is a crucial factor for economic development in developed and developing economies. This poses a need for governments to be involved in supporting technology research and development in their countries. A government must not only provide support when an emerging technology is being considered, it should also nurture and guide its development. The effective national technology policies and strategies should go beyond merely identifying the critical technologies.

This research has developed a systematic and comprehensive approach for policy makers to strategically define …

Analysis And Classification Of Sounds Produced By Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus), Sharon Stuart Glaeser

Dissertations and Theses

Relatively little is known about the vocal repertoire of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), and a categorization of basic call types and modifications of these call types by quantitative acoustic parameters is needed to examine acoustic variability within and among call types, to examine individuality, to determine communicative function of calls via playback, to compare species and populations, and to develop rigorous call recognition algorithms for monitoring populations.

This study defines an acoustic repertoire of Asian elephants based on acoustic parameters, compares repertoire usage among groups and individuals, and validates structural distinction among call types through comparison of manual and automated …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet May 2009, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The May 2009 Monthly packet includes the May agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held May 2009.

Raps Sheet, May 2009, Retirement Association Of Portland State

RAPS Sheet: Monthly Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Center For Real Estate Quarterly, Volume 3, Number 2, Portland State University. Center For Real Estate

Center for Real Estate Quarterly

Table of Contents:
--"Coliseum Choices: An Asset Too Valuable to Demolish," by Professor Will Macht (pages 3-22)
--"The Credit Crisis in Commercial Real Estate," by Christopher Longinetti (pages 23-34)
--"Bursting Bubbles: Portland's Distressed Housing Market," by Tom Heineke (pages 35-48)
--"Housing Market Analysis," by Elizabeth Warren (pages 49-62)
--"Office Market Analysis," by April Chastain (pages 63-69)
--"Industrial Market Analysis," by April Chastain (pages 70-72)
--"Multifamily Market Analysis," by April Chastain (pages 73-77)

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: A Professor’s pollution research places him in an elite academy; a new grant allows students and faculty to champion sustainable solutions; through willpower and scholarships, Caressa Sims is the first in her family to earn a university degree; for 20 years, alumnus Steve Amen has shown Oregonians Oregon; and more.

Why We Should Adopt Alaconnect : A Brief Review And Rumination On Ala's New Online Community, Emily Ford

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

The article offers a brief review and rumination on American Library Association's (ALA's) ALAConnect, an online community. ALAConnect aims to engage in ALA business and network with other members around issues and interests relevant to the profession. The author discusses the social context and implications that ALAConnect has on ALA politics and the organization's evolution, as well as some of the more apparent and concrete issues surrounding this technological implementation.

Developing One's Self: Adoption And Identity Formation Through The Eyes Of Transracially Adopted Native American Adults, Jody Becker-Green

Dissertations and Theses

Life story methods were used to explore the contextual factors that influenced the experiences and identity formation of seven Native American adults who were transracially adopted prior to the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. These methods provided a deeper understanding of how these individuals have integrated their adoption experiences into their evolving sense of self. The life story methodology offered a way to acknowledge and validate participants' life experiences and allowed for the collection of rich information from the perspectives of the adoptees.

The life story interviews were structured to gather information on the influence of …

Quaternions, Octonions, And The Quantization Of Games, Aden Omar Ahmed

Dissertations and Theses

We present an effect on classical games that is obtained by replacing the notion of probability distribution with the notions of quantum superposition and measurement. Our particular focus will be on two and three player games where each player has precisely two pure strategic choices. Games in normal form are represented as "payoff" functions.

Game quantization requires the extension of these functions to much larger domains. The main result of this work is the co-ordinatization of these extended functions by either the quaternions or octonions in order to obtain computationally friendly versions of these functions. This computational capability is then …

10 Key Principles For Designing Video Games For Foreign Language Learning, Ravi Purushotma, Steven L. Thorne, Julian Wheatley

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper was produced for the Open Language & Learning Games Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Education Arcade.

Ethnic Place Making: Thirty Years Of Brazilian Immigration To South Framingham, Massachusetts, Laura Aldea Skorczeski

Dissertations and Theses

Over the past thirty years, Massachusetts has become a hub of Brazilian immigration. Within Massachusetts, the town of Framingham has the highest concentration of Brazilian residents; one census tract in the southern part of this Boston suburb is an astounding 57.4 percent Brazilian. The presence of the Brazilian population in downtown Framingham, also referred to as South Framingham, has transformed the area into a landscape of Brazilian ethnicity.

When Brazilians began arriving in South Framingham in the early 1980s, the downtown Central Business District was a blighted landscape. This thesis analyzes how Brazilian identities have become imprinted on the landscape …

Some Change, John Oddo

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This short essay compares the war-time rhetoric of George W. Bush with the rhetoric of Barack Obama. The eerie similarities between the two lead me to question Obama's promise of change.

Comic Fans And Convergence Culture: Community Of Readers In The Master Of Kung Fu, David Edward Beard, Kate Vo Thi-Beard

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

As a member of several fan cultures, I have an interest in the processes that fan audiences use to construct and reconstruct the texts they consume. Additionally, I think of the way (written, oral, and musical) texts construct the individuals who constitute their audiences. Examining Master of Kung Fu provided the perfect combination of these two interests. -- David

My fascination with representations of Asians in the media began with The Destroyer book series that I read as a teen. While the character Remo at first resisted his fate, he quickly embraced his identity as the next Master of Sinanju. …

Speaking In Translation: Obama's Interview With Al Arabiya, John C Landreau

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This is a response to the Obama interview with Al Arabiya on January 26. I highlight the contrast between Obama's rhetoric now and the war talk that characterized the Bush years.

I, Barack Hussein Obama: Virtual Crowds And Participatory Politics In The 2009 Inauguration, Elizabeth Losh

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Pundits in the mainstream media have a tendency to chastise Internet users for making their private lives public and for putting the most intimate or mundane details of their personal experiences into digital files for all to gawk at online. As a scholar of rhetoric, my fear is that these practices won't be public enough now that so many people rely on corporate cloud computing to store and share photos, videos, and journal entries, and social network sites often function as the Internet equivalent of gated communities. At the same time corporate copyright regimes are claiming intellectual property rights to …

An Evaluation Of An Upper-Division, General Education Information Literacy Program, Elizabeth Spackman Hopkins, Suzanne Julian

Communications in Information Literacy

The Advanced Writing library instruction program at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) is intended to teach junior-level students advanced information literacy and research skills. Student participation in the program is required in each of six junior-level English courses. Anecdotal feedback from librarians and students identified problems with the program; therefore, a qualitative evaluation of the program was conducted with the objective of identifying problems and possible solutions. The evaluation included a student survey and focus groups with students, librarians, and English faculty. In this paper, we describe the HBLL Advanced Writing (AW) instruction program, identify the problems …

Pedagogical Considerations In Developing An Online Tutorial In Information Literacy., Therese Skagen, Maria Carme Torras, Solveig M. L. Kavli, Susanne Mikki, Sissel Hafstad, Irene Hunskår

Communications in Information Literacy

The article discusses the pedagogical background on which the design of the online tutorial Søk & Skriv ('Search and Write') is based. The tutorial Søk & Skriv is specially designed for distance learning students, but can also be used by students on campus. Søk & Skriv aims at increasing students' information and digital literacy with the ultimate goal of empowering them to gradually become legitimate members of the academic community, as well as lifelong learners. Further, the tutorial sets out to make a contribution to the pedagogical development of user education at the academic library. The article shows how a …

The Importance Of A Philosophy Of Teaching Statement To The Teacher/Librarian, Janelle M. Zauha

Communications in Information Literacy

Teaching Matters: Developing as a Teacher/Librarian Statements of teaching philosophy are most commonly associated with regular teaching faculty outside the library. In this column we will explore why librarians should also voice their philosophy of teaching, how it can benefit their students, themselves, and their institution. We'll touch on resources for conceptualizing, writing, and using statements as well.

Incorporating Vendor-Created Training Into Information Literacy Instruction: A Case Study, Carissa Holler

Communications in Information Literacy

In Fall 2007, the Library and the Department of Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign collaborated to offer a course that would not only assist students in achieving vendor-sponsored certification in the use of a fundamental financial resource, but would also enhance the students' educational experience by incorporating elements of information literacy instruction. This paper profiles the librarian-instructor's process of creating and conducting the course with the vendor's certification program embedded therein. Outcomes of the course, insights gained from the experience, and recommendations for other librarian-instructors are also discussed.

Why Peer Review?, Stewart Brower

Communications in Information Literacy

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet April 2009, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The April 2009 Monthly packet includes the April agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held March 2009

'Conflict Analysis:' Exploring The Role Of Kuwait In Mediation In The Middle East, Abdullah R. Al Saleh

Dissertations and Theses

The Middle East is a large geographical area, and while people think of it as a homogeneous area in terms of language and culture, the region IS actually more of a melting pot of ethnic, religious, racial and linguistic groups. Understanding the distinctions between these groups is of paramount importance to understanding the region. Historical rivalries between some groups, for example, Sunni and Shia Muslims, go back hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. Yet, people continue with life. How do countries continue to deal with each other when there are open, unsettled questions, such as boundaries or control of islands? Is …

"The Ivory Tower" On An "Unstable Foundation": Playful Language, Humor, And Metaphor In The Negotiation Of Scientists' Identities, L. David Ritchie, Char Schell

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this essay we argue that metaphor and language play generally should be analyzed in the context of actual conversations, not as a peripheral or incidental part of the discourse, but as an integral part of both topic-centered and relational work. We examine several instances of playful metaphor, humor, and irony that occurred during a one-hour focus-group discussion among a group of scientists discussing their role in communicating about science with laypersons. During the course of this discussion, word play, humorous insults, and the elaboration and reconstruction of metaphorical idioms are used for a variety of purposes, including reinforcement of …

Research Choice And Finance In University Bioscience, David E. Ervin, Steven T. Buccola, Hui Yang

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Academic bioscience's rising importance for downstream technology and growing private sector relationships have evoked substantial policy attention. We contribute to the scrutiny by asking how university bioscientists design and finance their research, with particular attention to the mutuality of research portfolio choice and funding success. The analysis requires consideration of other major influences on academic science, including scientific norms, human capital, and institutional environment. Drawing on a national survey of university bioscientists, we find that public financial support encourages more basic investigation and private support encourages more applied investigation. Yet downstream research is only moderately more excludable than upstream. Once …

The Portland Spectator, March 2009, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Portland Spectator

Editor: Sarah J. Christensen

Articles in this issue include: Re-constructing views on conservatism; Stimulating your understanding : Joe gets down and dirty with the economic recovery; Profiling the SFC: A review of the committee’s performance this year; Even in Haiti, a difference can be made: Bringing hope to forgotten places; Milestones in conservative thought: the future of conservative thought; Oregon energy: How one school is teaching Portland a lesson.

Collaborative Writing In Wikis: Insights From Culture Projects In Intermediate German Classes, Nike Arnold, Lara Ducate, Claudia Kost

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This presentation reports the findings of a study designed to investigate the collaborative writing and revision processes of foreign language learners in a wiki environment. Specifically, it is based on a comparison of two wiki projects in intermediate German classes in which small groups of students used wikis to collaborate on a project based on cultural and historical topics related to a novel. The archived versions of the wiki were analyzed for the amount, type, and quality of revisions. In addition, an end-of-semester survey was administered to assess learner attitudes towards the project and perceptions of the writing process.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet March 2009, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

Faculty Senate minutes from meeting held March 2, 2009. This item contains the agenda, minutes, and attachments for the Faculty Senate meeting on this date. Some issues accompanied by reports from officers of administration and faculty committees.

Improving Travel Information Products Via Robust Estimation Techniques, David Maier, Kristin A. Tufte, Rafael J. Fernández Moctezuma

TREC Final Reports

Traffic-monitoring systems, such as those using loop detectors, are prone to coverage gaps, arising from sensor noise, processing errors and transmission problems. Such gaps adversely affect the accuracy of Advanced Traveler Information Systems. This project will explore models based on historical data that can provide estimates to fill such gaps. We build on an initial study by Mr. Rafael J. Fernandez-Moctezuma, using both a linear model and an artificial neural network (ANN) trained on historical data to estimate values for reporting gaps. These initial models were 80% and 89% accurate, respectively, in estimating the correct speed range, and misclassifications were …