Digital Commons Network^™

Catherine De' Medici: The Crafting Of An Evil Legend, Lindsey J. Donohue

Young Historians Conference

Catherine de’ Medici is commonly known and referred to by historians as an “Evil queen”. This paper aims to examine how her reputation has been built upon legend and myth rather than fact. It explores how sixteenth century Europe’s overwhelming patriarchal prejudice and bias, along with an underlying presence of Xenophobia, has influenced the conclusion many historians have made about Medici. Rather, Catherine de’ Medici was a strategic ruler whose goal was to maintain peace at all cost during a religiously trying time. Through the commentary of a sixteenth century anonymous European writer, the paper aims to show that Medici …

Archaeological Feature Identification Through Geochemical Analysis Of Arctic Sediments From The Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Northwest Alaska, Patrick William Reed

Dissertations and Theses

Identification and interpretation of archaeological phenomena is typically based on visual cues and the physical presence of "something archaeological," such as a diagnostic artifact, landscape modification, or structural element. Yet many archaeological features, i.e. the discrete archaeological deposits related to past human behavior, lack clear indicators of human activity that provides clues to the feature's origin. At the Cape Krusenstern beach ridge complex, located in northwest Alaska, ambiguous features, that could be natural or anthropogenic (vegetation anomalies), or are of unknown cultural function (indeterminate), comprise 60% of the identified features at the complex. These ambiguous features represent a large gap …

Cultural Wealth And The Racialized Experiences Of Persisting Latinx Business Students In A Predominantly White Institution: A Study On Sense Of Belonging, Rebecca Sue Sanchez

Dissertations and Theses

The changing landscape of higher education calls for a shift in approach to ensure that all students are given not just the opportunity but also the environment in which to succeed. In order to facilitate the growing demand for a diverse workforce, universities must work to retain students and support them sufficiently as they move toward graduation. Student persistence rates from year one to year two show markedly different rates based on race and ethnicity with the lowest persistence rates associated with Latinx and Black students. National projections of college attendance by race and ethnicity predict that Latinx students will …

A Numerical Investigation Of Microgravity Evaporation, Daniel Peter Ringle

Dissertations and Theses

Evaporation is important to myriad engineering processes such as cooling, distillation, thin film deposition, and others. In fact, NASA has renewed interest in using cabin air pressure evaporation as a means to recycle waste water in space. As one example, NASA recently conducted experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to measure evaporation rates in microgravity and to determine the impacts of porous structure on the process. It has long been assumed that differences in evaporation rates between 1-g₀ and microgravity are small. However, discrepancies by as much as 40% have been observed in practice. The assumption now …

Ecosystem Engineering In The Backwater Wetlands Of The Lower Columbia: Feature Specific Testing Of The Virginia Lake Stake Alignment, Michelle Noel North

Dissertations and Theses

There is a growing interest in anthropology towards identifying and documenting the ways in which people have modified landscapes and ecosystems through time. Previous research has focused predominantly on terrestrial modification, whereas recently, research has turned towards aquatic environments. Examples range from the tidal fish pens of Hawai'i to fish weir complexes and clam gardens on the Northwest Coast. Scholars are beginning to apply the term human ecosystem engineering to the practices linked to wetland landscape modifications. Evidence of these practices can contribute to understanding optimization, cultivation, and modification of aquatic environments on a landscape level. However, some regions have …

Amplifying Latinx Voice Through Interview Study: Highlighting Mathematics Identity As A Pathway To Student Self-Empowerment And Academic Agency, Brea Justine Cohen

Dissertations and Theses

Nationally, the percentage of high school students taking higher-level mathematics courses (beyond Algebra 2) has increased from the late 20th century to the present. However, as compared to White high school students enrolled in advanced math classes, the rate is lower among students of color, specifically students who identify as Latinx, African American, or Native American. My school district (a suburban district in the Northwestern United States) is working to address this problem by implementing several district-wide initiatives that focus on increasing students' engagement in mathematics, which focuses teacher pedagogy on leveraging mathematics communities to support collaborative mathematics dialogue. The …

"It Puts A Face To All The Knowledge We've Gotten" : A Program Of Research On Intimate Partner Violence Surrogate Impact Panels, Kate Louise Sackett Kerrigan

Dissertations and Theses

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one of the most pressing and consequential social problems facing the United States. The current response to IPV in the U.S. is most often a form of tertiary prevention, targeted at individuals directly responsible for (referred to here as "justice involved individuals" or JIIs) and harmed by IPV (referred to here as "survivors"). U.S. institutional responses to IPV are implemented through the criminal justice system. The inherent contradiction in grounding IPV intervention approaches such as BIPs within a social system that itself uses coercion, threat of punishment, and retribution to maintain order and control over …

Meta-Analysis Of Tobacco Control Policies For Reducing Tobacco Consumption, Arya Kevin Naghdi

University Honors Theses

The harmful effects of tobacco consumption and smoking have been well documented, and the literature is conclusive on their negative effects. However, there is still a great deal of discussion to be had on which policies and strategies can be employed to decrease smoking rates. Tobacco control policies used in the past included tobacco taxes, smoke free zones, anti-smoking media, sale to minors bans, and advertising restrictions on tobacco companies. Yet, it is still unclear which policies are most effective and least effective when it comes to reducing smoking rates. A meta-analysis of 11 articles analyzing the effects of each …

Aggregated Water Heater System (Awhs) Optimization For Ancillary Services, Manasseh Obi

Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I present a two-stage optimization routine that schedules an Aggregated Water Heater System (AWHS) to concurrently provide three utility ancillary services, namely, frequency regulation, frequency response, and peak demand mitigation.

Water heaters can be controlled to manage their energy take, the amount of energy a water heater can absorb upon command. The AWHS is a model aggregation of thousands of water heaters, the energy take and power characteristics of which are based on U.S Census household data and usage behavior patterns. The aggregate energy take available in the AWHS may be dispatched en masse for participation in …

Re-Engaging Individual Capacities In Service Of Civic Capacity: A Model Of Holistic Civic Engagement Education For The University, Jane Gerald Carr

Dissertations and Theses

A healthy democracy requires active civic engagement. Effective civic involvement can be encouraged by education that helps students learn to respect diverging viewpoints and build skills such as critical thinking about policy frameworks. In higher education, we have seen progress in teaching for civic engagement despite pressures to focus narrowly on career preparation. However, it is important to build on this work in two ways. First, the noncognitive and holistic dimensions of civic engagement have not been thoroughly considered in designing civic education. Second, the field could reach its goals more effectively by adopting teaching strategies that directly help students …

The Afghan Peace Agreement And Its Problems, Grant M. Farr

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

On February 29, 2020, in Doha, Qatar the United States and the Afghan Taliban signed a peace agreement designed to end the long war in Afghanistan. The agreement contains largely the same conditions that had been agreed upon in September 2019 but which was scuttled by President Trump. Essentially, this agreement calls for the removal of United States and Coalition forces from Afghanistan in exchange for the promise that the Taliban would not allow terrorist groups to operate on Afghan soil. However, the agreement is premised on several assumptions that will make its success problematic. The agreement assumes a functioning …

Unpacking The Process And Outcomes Of Ethical Markets: A Focus On Certified B Corporations, Renée Bogin Curtis

Dissertations and Theses

The growth in conscious consumption presents an opportunity to 1) better understand the potential outcomes of ethical market practices as a community-advocacy tool and 2) to consider potential policy considerations. The marketplace has increasingly become an arena for social action. This leads to the question of how can markets facilitate ethical business practices and community benefits? The recent rise of social benefit corporations warrants an evaluation of the outcomes of ethically-driven markets. Using a comparative research design and qualitative interview methods, this study examines certified Benefit Corporations (B Corps) in two selected cities: Philadelphia and Portland. Through interviews with B …

The Middle East, North Africa, South Asia (Menasa) Initiative: Spring 2020 Newsletter, Ahmed El Mansouri, Menasa Initiative Team

Cultural Resource Centers Reports and Resources

Spring 2020 Newsletter for The Middle East, North Africa, South Asia (Menasa) Initiative at Portland State University. Features include MENASA highlights, visiting speakers, and upcoming events.

Lifecycles Of Digital Files And Staff Labor At Ooligan Press In Portland, Oregon, Kathi Inman Berens

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

This Sidebar is an overview of the human process of creating, sorting, storing and preserving digital files in the lifecycle of one book made by Portland State University's Ooligan Press. Ooligan is a teaching press staffed by students pursuing master's degrees in the Department of English.

Friendship Projects Within Embargo: Peacemaking And Power Between Us And Cuban Quakers 1987-2019, Jade Souza

University Honors Theses

This paper analyzes Quaker friendship projects between US and Cuban Quakers within the embargo period, with friendship construction being looked at as creative act within a contact zone. How are these intercultural friendships formed and sustained within communities from two countries in conflict? How do they relate to larger social dynamics such as intractable conflict and tourism? How do the friendships change the dynamics within these communities? Two examples of friendship projects are looked at in terms of the strategies they employ to navigate the dynamics of conflict and social inequality between the two states.

Original, Nicole Donisi, Skyler Hayes, Ash Horn, Naomi Likayi, Trudy Chin, Fahad Al-Meraikhi, Matt Davidson, Wolfgang Schildmeyer, Nicola Cheadle, Melissa Delzio, Olivia Ridgley, Portland Design History

Student Work

This magazine showcases some of the people, brands and organizations of significance from Portland’s design scene with a focus on the 1960s & 1970s.

Impacts Of The Coronavirus Pandemic On Biodiversity Conservation, Richard T. Corlett, Richard B. Primack, Vincent Devictor, Bea Mass, Varun Goswami, Amanda Bates, Lian Pin Koh, Tracey Reagan, Rafael Loyola, Robin J. Pakeman, Graeme S. Cumming, Anna Pidgeon, David Johns, Robin Roth

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting all parts of human society. Like everyone else, conservation biologists are concerned first with how the pandemic will affect their families, friends, and people around the world. But we also have a duty to think about how it will impact the world's biodiversity and our ability to protect it, as well as how it might affect the training and careers of conservation researchers and practitioners. As editors of Biological Conservation, we have heard first-hand from colleagues, authors, and reviewers around the world about the problems they are facing, and their concerns for their students, their …

Soil Nitrogen Cycling Over Two Decades Following Calcium Treatment In Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, Nh, Angelina Uribe

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

A watershed-scale calcium addition experiment at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, was performed in 1999 to better understand how forest ecosystem function and biogeochemistry are affected by changes in pH. Significant increases in forest growth and acid neutralizing capacity of the soil and stream water were reported in the six years following the calcium addition, but the expected stimulation of the nitrogen cycle was not observed. The aims of this study were to 1) examine the 20-year dataset of soil nitrogen dynamics following the experimental calcium addition in the treated watershed and paired reference area to understand longer term …

Exploring An Instrumented Balance Assessment In Athletes With Acute Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Compared To Healthy Athletes And Non-Athletes, Bryana Popa

University Honors Theses

Balance deficits are common following mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) and can persist beyond the standard recovery period. Advances in wearable technologies, such as inertial measurement units (IMUs), have increased utilization of instrumented balance assessments. There are limited studies providing normative ranges for the Balance Error Scoring System (mBESS) to characterize abnormalities in people with mTBI. This thesis provides balance ranges for athletes with acute mTBI and normative control populations completing the mBESS. Testing occurred at the university athletic facility or the Balance Disorders Laboratory at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and the Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System …

Scanning Electron Microscopy (Sem) Investigation Of Morphology Changes In The Reduction Of Silica Nanoparticles To Elemental Silicon, Allison M. Cairns

University Honors Theses

The application of silicon nanoparticles varies from energy storage materials, to drug-delivery, and molecular recognition. Various chemical and physical properties of the Si nanoparticles arise from their morphology. This paper aims to reveal the morphology of Si nanoparticles following magnesiothermic reduction of silica (SiO₂) nanoparticles. Two sets of SiO₂ nanoparticles were used, commercially available NanoXact nanoparticles and laboratory-synthesized Stöber nanoparticles. A Zeiss Sigma VP FEG SEM was used to examine the morphology. Following the magnesiothermic reduction, the nanoparticles were etched with HF. Ten sets of images were taken of both Stöber and NanoXact nanoparticles: 1,2: the SiO …

Warmer Conditions Favor Conifer Tree Establishment At The Muddy River Lahar In Mt. St. Helens, Washington, Ignacio D. Falcon-Dvorsky

Dissertations and Theses

Climate variability impacts on Pacific Northwest forests are of great concern, especially on evergreen coniferous ecosystems which dominate a large portion of the landscape. Understanding the effect of climate variability and its potential impacts on forest regeneration is crucial, as this is a foundational process with long-lasting consequences on structure and composition of future ecosystems. The objective of this study was to uncover the possible influences of natural climate variability on conifer tree establishments on the Muddy Rivers Lahar following the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, WA. We hypothesized that tree establishment increased gradually over time, tree establishments was …

Book Review Of, Japanese Kanji Power: A Workbook For Mastering Japanese Characters, Karen Curtin

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book review of Japanese Kanji Power: A Workbook for Mastering Japanese Characters, by John Millen

Book Review Of, Beneath The Sleepless Tossing Of The Planets: Selected Poems Of Makoto Ōoka, Jon Holt

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book review of Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets: Selected Poems ofcMakoto Ōoka.

Workflow Critical Path: A Data-Oriented Path Metric For Holistic Hpc Workflows, Daniel D. Nguyen

Dissertations and Theses

Optimizing scientific application performance in HPC environments is a complicated task which has motivated the development of many performance analysis tools over the past decades. These tools were designed to analyze the performance of a single parallel code using common approaches such as message passing (MPI), multithreading (OpenMP), acceleration (CUDA), or a hybrid approach. However, current trends in HPC such as the push to exascale, convergence with Big Data, and growing complexity of HPC applications and scientific workflows, have created gaps that these performance tools do not cover, particularly involving end-to-end data movement through an end-to-end HPC workflow comprising multiple …

Multiple Diagram Navigation, Hisham Benotman

Dissertations and Theses

Domain novices learning about a new subject can struggle to find their way in large collections. Typical searching and browsing tools are better utilized if users know what to search for or browse to. In this dissertation, we present Multiple Diagram Navigation (MDN) to assist domain novices by providing multiple overviews of the content matter using multiple diagrams. Rather than relying on specific types of visualizations, MDN superimposes any type of diagram or map over a collection of documents, allowing content providers to reveal interesting perspectives of their content. Domain novices can navigate through the content in an exploratory way …

Extensible Performance-Aware Runtime Integrity Measurement, Brian G. Delgado

Dissertations and Theses

Today's interconnected world consists of a broad set of online activities including banking, shopping, managing health records, and social media while relying heavily on servers to manage extensive sets of data. However, stealthy rootkit attacks on this infrastructure have placed these servers at risk. Security researchers have proposed using an existing x86 CPU mode called System Management Mode (SMM) to search for rootkits from a hardware-protected, isolated, and privileged location. SMM has broad visibility into operating system resources including memory regions and CPU registers. However, the use of SMM for runtime integrity measurement mechanisms (SMM-RIMMs) would significantly expand the amount …

Examining Integration And Sense Of Belonging Among Undergraduate Students Participating In Stem Support Programs, Mackenzie J. Gray

University Honors Theses

National calls have been made to strengthen our nation’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce by improving student preparation and increasing retention rates. A sense of belonging in STEM fields is thought to be key for persistence in STEM, but many students face academic, social, and financial barriers that can impede this sense of belonging. These barriers can be more pronounced for students underrepresented in STEM. In response, many federal and non-governmental agencies have invested in the future STEM workforce by funding STEM support programs. Such programs aim to support student persistence by providing academic, social, and financial resources …

The Impacts Of The Bicycle Network On Bicycling Activity: A Longitudinal Multi-City Approach, Wei Shi

Dissertations and Theses

Bicycling is a promising approach to improve health, environment, and economic development of urban places. Theoretically, a bicycle network's component goes beyond lanes and paths, and would generate greater impacts than the sum of its parts. However, most previous research focused on how individual types of bicycle-related infrastructure could promote bicycling. Few empirical studies investigated how bicycle networks impact bicycling activity. This project attempts to address this question. Specifically, how to properly measure bicycle networks, and what impacts bicycle networks have on bicycling activity, e.g. bike ridership and bike mode choice, across different cities and longitudinally.

To address the first …

Working Paper No. 41, On Baseball And Thorstein Veblen’S Understanding Of Instincts, Brian Burres

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that, Thorstein Veblen’s understanding of instincts can be used to offer insights into to the game of baseball. Veblen’s view of instincts serves as a way for understanding different behaviors exhibited by those involved in the game. Behaviors can be broadly categorized into “selfregarding” and “group-regarding”. Applying Veblen’s understanding of instincts to baseball offers a novel perspective on actions taken and behaviors displayed by those participating in, as well as those who stand behind the game. Some human actions appear to be for the betterment of the game, and these actions align with Veblen’s understanding …

Tending The Fire: Wildfire Risk Management At The Interface, Cody R. Evers

Dissertations and Theses

Escalating loss from wildfire in the American West has made clear the need to rethink wildfire risk, including how such risks result from the unique interaction of social and natural dynamics within the wildland urban interface. Unfortunately, techniques for studying these interactions remain limited. The intent of this research is to address this gap. In each of four chapters, I examine different aspects of wildfire risk management through a coupled human-natural lens. I document how wildfire activity has shifted over three decades across forest and shrubland systems in the western US and connect these changes to the simultaneous growth in …