Digital Commons Network^™

Women's Social Roles And Alcohol Use Among Military-Connected Spouses, Sheila Kathleen Mccabe Nickerson

Dissertations and Theses

Increases in women's alcohol use are an intensifying public health problem in the United States, contributing to a hidden epidemic of alcohol-related mortality. Women's alcohol consumption is often not openly discussed or recognized due to social stigma, the perception that women drink less than men, and the fact that women can experience negative health consequences from lower levels of alcohol consumption (relative to men), making the issue less visible than it actually is. A range of factors potentially influence women's drinking, including social roles (i.e., mother); yet, the literature is varied as to whether the combination of multiple-role demands/expectations fosters …

Mechanical Improvements And Control Implementation On A Biomimetic Quadruped Model, Matthew Jack Lutz

Dissertations and Theses

Robotic development started billions of years after earth first began biological prototyping. While the evolutionary process in animals is quite different from robotic prototyping, it still remains no surprise that animals remain more agile, more efficient, and more adaptable than even the most advanced engineered robots to date, simply due to the sheer length of their improvement process. While bridging this improvement gap between deficits in robots and the abilities of animals is difficult, a specific subfield of robotics engineering has attempted to do so using biomimetic robotics. At Portland State, the Agile and Adaptive Robotics Lab (AARL) studies these …

A Failure To Converge? The Use Of Convergent Designs In Mixed Methods Research, David L. Morgan

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prior studies show that what are known as “convergent” designs are the most common form of mixed methods research, yet there has been too little investigation into what researchers actually do when they use convergent designs. This study addresses that gap in the literature by investi-gating not only the prevalence of convergent designs but also the types of convergent designs used and the degree of integration in studies that used this design. I used content analysis to ex-amine a random sample of 500 articles from the Web of Science that mentioned mixed methods and were published in 2023. The results …

An Integrated Multivariate Econometric Modeling Framework For Risky Driving Behavior Related Crashes: Evaluating Crash Risk And Severity Across Zones, Pabitra Kumar Roy

Dissertations and Theses

Rapid advancements in crash modeling have yet to fully integrate multiple behavior-driven crash types and their severity outcomes within a single, scalable framework, specially in a way that captures the sequential nature of these behaviors where one risky action may amplify another. This study proposed an integrated multivariate econometric framework to jointly model crash frequency and severity outcomes for three major behaviorally driven crash types: alcohol-related, distraction-related, and aggressive-driving-related crashes. Specifically, using Oregon's 2022 census block group-level crash data, we propose an Integrated Multivariate Negative Binomial – Generalized Ordered Probit Fractional Split (IMNB–GOPFS) model to analyze these dimensions simultaneously while …

Leveraging High-Performance Cloud Computing To Model Underwater Acoustic Propagation And Scattering From Time-Evolving Rough Sea-Surfaces Using The Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method, James Alexander Higgins

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation presents a two-dimensional (2D) Finite-difference Time-domain (FDTD) model for simulating underwater acoustic propagation and scattering from a one-dimensional (1D) time-evolving rough sea-surface. The techniques discussed are extendable to three spatial dimensions. Traditional acoustic modeling techniques often rely on a "frozen" sea-surface assumption, which proves inadequate for long-duration signals interacting with the time-evolving boundary at many different wave height displacements during its transit. To address this, a new FDTD update equation incorporating a variable subgrid is developed, significantly enhancing spatial accuracy at the boundary without increasing computational cost or compromising stability.

The model's accuracy is rigorously validated against established …

"I Like The Idea In Theory": Experiencing The Imperial Matrix Through Legal Gender Marker Changes And Nonbinary Disidentifications, Wynn Strange

Dissertations and Theses

Since 2018 twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have implemented administrative changes that provide a third gender option on at least one state identification document allowing nonbinary and intersex people the opportunity to select a gender marker that reflects their gender identity. This study draws from 28 interviews with agender or otherwise nonbinary people living in Maryland and California. I use queer of color and critical trans theory to consider the implications of legal gender marker changes. This research explores how social, historical, and geographical location can influence ones' awareness of, experiences with, and relation to real and imagined …

Working Paper No. 104, An Gorta Mór: The ‘Great Hunger’ And Irish Immigrant Labor In 19th Century America, Amanda Bergeson

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that portions of the population of Ireland -- responding to what has been referred to in their Celtic language as An Gorta Mór, or in the English language as the ‘Great Hunger -- took to emigrating en masse and therewith contributed bigly to the expansion of America’s labor supply. Bolsterd by Irish immigrants, this expanding mid-nineteenth century labor force provided for an abundance of workers needed for a broadly based industrialization, that would also lead to large-scale urbanization as well as a host of changes in this nation’s social fabric. Of note is that …

Working Paper No. 105, John Locke And The American Experiment, Riley Sharps

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that ideas advanced by the Englishman John Locke, regarding private property, natural rights, as well as a social contract for relations between authorities and governed, influenced the American experiment at its founding. Locke’s novel understanding regarding private property greatly influenced leaders railing against British dominance. His ideas were picked up by founding figures such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, as well as James Madison, and Thomas Paine. Through their leadership, in particular, Locke’s ideas were carried forward and served as the inspiration behind key concepts appearing in this new nation’s founding documents. First appearing in …

Leveraging Social Capital For Value Creation In Public Procurement: The Role Of Strategic Purchasing Integration, Iryna Malacina, Jad El Bizri, Frederik G. S. Vos, Elina Karttunen, Aki Jaaskelainen

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose Although the integration of the purchasing function within strategic decision-making has been extensively studied in the context of the private sector, its significance for the effective functioning of public procurement (PP) remains underexplored. Effective PP is critical for suppliers, users of public services and society at large. This study investigates how the strategic integration of PP influences operational, environmental and innovative value creation by developing social capital in buyer–supplier relationships. Design/methodology/approach This study empirically examined how strategic purchasing integration contributes to the development of social capital in buyer–supplier relationships, which in turn affects value creation. It utilizes survey data …

Exploring The Experiences Of White Passing And White-Assumed Latine College Students, Emanuel Magaña

Dissertations and Theses

Between 2009 and 2019 Latine college enrollment has increased, yet retention and graduation rates lag those of their white peers. While barriers for Latine students are well-documented, the influence of colorism, particularly among lighter-skinned or white passing students, remains understudied. This study utilized a qualitative case-study approach grounded in CRT and LatCrit and based on a Street Race Praxis framework. This study explored the experiences of twelve white passing and/or white-assumed Latine students at an emerging HSI in the Pacific Northwest. Using Testimonio informed approach and Counterstory, I drew from interviews, pláticas, site observations, and document analysis to create four …

From Cafes To Competitiveness: The Influence Of Amenities On Office Values And Suburban Economic Development In Portland, Or, Jihye Kang

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the spatial and economic implications of urban amenities in the formation of suburban office markets in the post-pandemic period. The research applies principles from agglomeration theory, spatial econometrics, and urban planning to analyze the statistical relationships between amenity distribution, rent formation, and location behavior across central and non-central submarkets.

The research consists of three integrated papers focused on the Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, OR–WA Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The first paper employs spatial econometric modeling, specifically a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances (SARAR), to examine the relationship between proximity to cafés and office rent levels in Portland’s central business …

Online Decision Mamba, Trenton W. Ruf

Dissertations and Theses

Online in-context reinforcement learning enhances offline-trained policies through online fine-tuning. We introduce Online Decision Mamba (ODM), an architecture that replaces the attention mechanism in Online Decision Transformers (ODT) with the Mamba module to improve long-context sequence modeling and overall RL performance. We performed in-depth evaluations on MuJoCo (OpenAI Gym) and Atari benchmarks, comparing ODM against state-of-the-art offline and online baselines—including Decision Mamba (DM) and ODT. Our results show that ODM achieves competitive or superior performance, with particularly robust gains when initial datasets lack expert demonstrations. In the Qbert Atari environment, ODM shows context-length sensitivity similar to offline DM; however, we …

You Have To Cut&Walk; Before You Can Cut&Run;: Regulation Of Gene Expression By The Vitamin D Receptor (Vdr) In The Annual Killifish, Austrofundulus Limnaeus, Rosalia Tanori

Dissertations and Theses

The annual killifish, Austrofundulus limnaeus, found in ephemeral ponds in South America, possesses a remarkable ability to survive extended periods without water and oxygen. This ability is associated with developmental dormancy known as diapause. Numerous genetic and environmental factors influence the entry into diapause and tolerance to environmental stress. Among these is vitamin D3 signaling mediated by the vitamin D receptor (VDR), which plays a crucial role in regulating entry into diapause and the continuous development of an embryo in a temperature-dependent manner. Vitamin D3 signaling influences a variety of physiological processes in vertebrates. While extensively characterized in mammalian …

Spike Timing Depended Plasticity Produces Unsupervised Learning Of Synergistic Muscle Feedback In A Synthetical Neural Network, Mark Allen Pupkiewicz

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates how type Ia feedback from muscle spindles can be organized into groups representing agonistic muscle pairs through Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP). A single degree of freedom joint is actuated with four biologically modeled muscles forming two agonistic pairs. In order to emulate the sensory dynamics of biological muscle spindles, sensors in the model record the active length and velocity states of each muscle, the two primary factors eliciting type Ia afferent responses. In biological networks, synapses from Ia sensory neurons frequently activate interneurons representing agonistic muscle sources. This research investigates whether this organization can emerge in …

The Social Side Of Aging In Place: Community, Belonging, And Cultural Fit, Michael Crespo

University Honors Theses

Aging in place, or the capacity of older adults to remain in their homes and communities as they age has been a central tenet of the field of gerontology and the gerontological social policy area. Although access to physical facilities and service provision has been the main focus of traditional studies, contemporary experience demonstrates that social and cultural issues are equally important as determinants of the quality of life. This thesis discusses the influence of social networks, cultural congruence, and community belonging on the aging in place experience. The content of the study is based on the Ecological Model of …

An Innovative Hdm Model For Assessing Renewable Heat Energy Resources In Utility Energy Systems, Mark Alan Ryan

Dissertations and Theses

Renewable Heat Energy projects exhibit numerous unique, complex, and often conflicting characteristics, including varying project sizes, diverse energy resources, stakeholder demands, and significant challenges in energy conversion applications. Traditionally, cash flow analysis and return on investment are the most widely recognized metrics for evaluating remote energy projects. However, numerous quantitative and qualitative factors influence the overall performance and success of Renewable Heat Energy System (RHES) projects. A comprehensive approach using advanced tools is essential for assessing the factors and criteria that significantly impact these projects.

This research investigates the key quantitative and qualitative factors that contribute to the successful implementation …

The Power Of Positive Lesbian Representation In Television: How It Affects The Well-Being And Identity Formation Of Lgbtq+ Adults, Brittany Berry

University Honors Theses

To date, there are no studies which explore the effects that positively represented Black and lesbian characters in television have on LGBTQ viewers. Exposure to LGBTQ characters has the potential to validate LGBTQ identities and improve well-being. A comprehensive literature review and quantitative analysis using Żerebecki et. al.'s codebook reveals there are simply not enough characters depicted to provide such research. In an attempt to demonstrate the qualities possessed by positively portrayed Black, lesbian characters, this study analyses Taissa Turner from the hit series Yellowjackets available on the streaming network Paramount+.

Human Evil (In The Weird), Lucas Ethridge

University Honors Theses

This paper examines a trending doom in speculative fiction: the post-human age. Many modern works have started to look past human civilization as humans surrender all hope and faith in a climate-doomed world. Honing in on core concepts in Weird fiction, this paper explores human merit through Old and New Weird. A good part spends time establishing the canon, looking at similar patterns across age, philosophy, war and genre. The chief question asks if humankind was ever worth saving.

Capstone Reflection: Developing A Muslim Prayer App For Psu Students, Jeremiah Su

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines the development process of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) App, a computer science capstone project. The app strives to help the Muslim community at Portland State University (PSU) and the Portland area by consolidating essential information for prayers, such as local prayer times, nearby masjids, and the direction of Qibla. The team behind this project was developed by 6 computer science developers, a majority of whom were from the Muslim culture and background. This paper describes the entire capstone development process from the perspective of a developer who is not rooted in Muslim customs. It also describes …

Medicaid Funding And Health-Related Social Needs: A Policy Analysis, Passion Ilea

Dissertations and Theses

The U.S. has disproportionately high health care spending compared to other high-income nations and comparatively poor health outcomes. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have recently increased emphasis on addressing Medicaid member social needs. CMS believes addressing health-related social needs (HRSN) may reduce costs and improve health outcomes for Medicaid members. CMS has begun to test theories regarding the impact of member HRSN on health care by designing federal mechanisms to address HRSN, such as in lieu of services and settings-funded services, and by encouraging state Medicaid programs to develop their own approaches, such as Flexible Services. Information …

Experience From A Distance: Improving Transparency For The Multnomah Athletic Club, Matthew Penner

University Honors Theses

Portland is home to the largest and one of the most prestigious athletic clubs in the world: Multnomah Athletic Club. In many ways, it is the pinnacle of luxury and innovation, and over time, it finds any way to entice prospective members to pay the expensive upfront fee of $6000 and monthly membership fees exceeding $300. Due to the previous technological barrier, which was not being able to see the full extent of what amenities the club had to offer, the club faced major challenges in recruitment and marketing. Over two academic terms, a team of six computer science capstone …

Bridging Boundaries: Integration Of Culturally Relevant Resources, James D. Ware, Evan W. Stokes

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This qualitative study examines the impact of culturally relevant resources on student engagement, motivation, and academic achievement in a language arts classroom. Since school curricula are increasingly scrutinized for their ability to reflect the historical and cultural diversity of student populations, this study investigates how integrating culturally relevant pedagogy can enhance learning outcomes. The study explores the student impact of blending culturally relevant teaching materials with traditional educational frameworks to foster a more inclusive and equitable classroom environment. By analyzing student feedback from a writing-intensive English course that utilized culturally relevant resources, the study seeks to provide insights into how …

Once Upon An Early Writing Experience: Connecting Memory With Literacy Instruction In Pre-Service Teacher Education, Jue Wang, Jingru Lu

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Through a narrative-based case study design, this research connects pre-service teachers’ early writing memories with their studies in writing instruction to explore how multi-layered and multi-faceted writing experiences across time and space influence teaching beliefs and practices. This article invites audiences to vicariously experience these pedagogical encounters, reflect on journeys to becoming writing teachers, and shed light onto the implications of teaching early writing. Comic artifacts and interview data were collected from nine pre-service teachers who learned to teach early writing/language arts in a four-year public university in the Inland Northwest. Based on the participants’ comics and narratives, four themes …

In-Between Spaces: First-Generation College Immigrant Experiences, Silvina Alamo Sousa-Ransford

Dissertations and Theses

It is human nature to seek a sense of belonging, acceptance, and community. College students also share this desire for connection in higher education, but some face more barriers and challenges. This study examined the experiences of first-generation college students who are also immigrants. The goal was to understand how to best support students in college, including through academic advising, at a four-year research university in the Pacific Northwest. To gain insight into the students' experiences, I interviewed participants using narrative qualitative methods guided by the framework of sense of belonging and analyzed the data utilizing Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model. The …

Recognition Through The Algorithm: How Emotional Identification Shapes The Circulation Of Classics On Booktok, Olivia Carolyn Cowles

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores how classic literature circulates within the virtual community known as BookTok. Rather than making any definitive claims, this study offers a preliminary look at how and why certain classics surface within a digital space. Using a mixed-methods approach that includes three Zeeschuimer data pulls paired with qualitative analysis of thirty-four unique top-performing videos. This thesis examines the recurring patterns regarding top performing content of classics. Early findings suggest that these posts tend to gain traction on BookTok due to recognition and relatability. The top texts retain their prominence not necessarily because of their canonical status, but because …

Cartographic Dialogue: A Pedagogy For Emotion And Critical Consciousness In Language Teacher Educator Identity Development, Camille Ungco‐Santos, Rachel S. Snyder Bhansari

Educator Licensure Faculty Publications and Presentations

Language teacher educators (LTEs) enter their roles with complex personal histories and experiences. Little research exam-ines the ways in which LTEs of varying backgrounds reflect on these histories, their emotional responses to these reflections,and their connections to cultural contexts or systemic (in)justice. In this article, we treat the examination of our own personalhistories and their intersections with systems of power, as well as our related emotions, as pedagogy or as a reciprocal way ofteaching and learning. We critically map out and discuss our journeys towards an LTE identity, including our emotions, througha reflective, collaborative, and ongoing method we call cartographic …

Social Work In Times Of Genocide: A Palestinian Feminist Praxis Of Social Work, Stephanie Wahab

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The abstract is translated in Arabic below. Social work cannot meaningfully claim a commitment to justice, human dignity, and the worth of people while simultaneously remaining committed to colonial logics. Recognizing and resisting collusion with settler colonialism demands structural shifts in knowledge production, curriculum, practice, and institutional alignment. This article speaks to organized social work’s collusion with the zionist project of Palestinian erasure amid the ongoing Nakba and genocide. Since Palestinian social workers are living and surviving genocide as they practice social work, worn binaries, such as provider–client, are unsettled in ways that make a Palestinian feminist praxis of social …

A Clinical Training Program For Auditory-Perceptual Rating Of Connected Speech In Aphasia., Marianne Casilio, Manaswita Dutta, Katherine Bryan, Kelly Crouch, Zachary Dewall, Ilana Feld, Jennifer Kile, Keely Mcmahan, Jacqueline Samora, Kiiya Shibata, Stacey Steel, Multiple Additional Authors

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although discourse analysis has been receiving growing interest among aphasia researchers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs), several key challenges, such as limited time, insufficient training, and a lack of accessible tools, preclude its practical application in clinical settings. To address these barriers, we developed and evaluated a clinical training program for Auditory-Perceptual Rating of Connected Speech in Aphasia (APROCSA; Casilio et al., 2019), a time-efficient and psychometrically robust transcriptionless system for quantifying a range of speech-language impairment features.

“‘What Is One Takeaway You've Gotten From This Learning Experience?’ Analyzing Student Reflections On Introductory Information Literacy Instruction”, Amanda Nichols Hess, Emily Ruth Benoit, Rebecca M. Krystyniak, Stephanie Williams

Communications in Information Literacy

Reflection is a useful pedagogical tool for both learners in instructional settings and educators seeking to offer meaningful experiences; in this article, a group of academic librarians use the former to engage with the latter. We analyzed more than 830 first-year students’ responses to a reflection question posed at the conclusion of library instruction over the course of the 2023–2024 academic year with a specific eye to the concepts that were and were not resonant, as well as whether there were common areas of confusion. We used a grounded theory approach to make sense of the data and allow ideas …

Why Teens Are Particularly Vulnerable To The Harms Of Vaping Addiction: A Literature Review, Chloe Manning-Floch

University Honors Theses

This literature review examines the factors that have been found to place teens aged 12-18 at particular risk of the harms of vaping addiction. Sixteen relevant research studies are cited, along with four other sources containing information from the FDA, CDC, and NPR, to determine which themes are the most significant and widely identified as risk factors adding to teens' vulnerability. While the body of research on teen vaping addiction is relatively new, strong consensus exists: the most significant factors placing teens at risk of vaping addiction's harms are sweet flavoring appealing to young people, marketing of vapes that has …