Digital Commons Network^™

Analyzing National War Propaganda Through Comparison Of Diverse Case Studies, Ike Sugitani

Dissertations and Theses

In the build-up to war, national governments utilize propaganda to gather public support for the war effort. In some instances, propaganda campaigns are conducted but war does not occur. This begs the question as to why war follows propaganda campaigns in some cases, but not in others. I argue that propaganda efforts that lead to war can be generally characterized through three major strategies based on a patriotic participatory social structure, a claim to moral authority, and the blending of individual concepts of the state, government and nation. In this study, I analyze the major historical case studies of the …

Fostering Meaningful Learning: Experiences Of Linguistically Diverse Trainers In Early Childhood Care And Education (Ecce) Professional Development, Anna Howell

Dissertations and Theses

Linguistically diverse trainers play a critical role in reshaping professional development (PD) within Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), yet their contributions remain marginalized within English-dominant institutional structures. This qualitative study explored how these trainers define and deliver meaningful learning experiences despite systemic barriers, limited resources, and monolingual policies. Grounded in critical constructivism, the research centered the lived experiences and voices of linguistically diverse trainers across multiple contexts. Through semi-structured interviews, participants shared how they co-constructed relational, culturally grounded, and linguistically affirming PD environments rooted in community knowledge and emotional connection. Findings reveal that meaningful learning occurs when training reflects …

Dwelling, Kelly Erin Mclysaght

Dissertations and Theses

dwelling explores the network of connections between time, the self, and physical space. People and place are layered, and memories haunt these blurred spaces. Poems follow several lines of questioning: what lingering presence does abuse leave in the body and in the home? Is it possible to inhabit and share space with these presences, and if so, what does that mean for identity, relationships, and safety? Through repetition, image, and syntax, dwelling constructs a maze, enacting the conflicting desire to both linger in memory and run from it, holding the haunting beauty of grief and loss alongside anger and alienation.

Mental Health In Prisons: Examining Variations In Disorders Across Custody Levels, Ariel Bysiek

Dissertations and Theses

The United States has a significantly large prison population with the number of people currently in a correctional facility being 1.9 million. Concern has been increasingly growing related to treatment of individuals in prison, particularly when it comes to solitary confinement. Many people believe that solitary confinement is unnecessarily cruel and debilitating to AIC's mental health. Studies have found contradicting information as to whether solitary impacts mental health. Part of the reason for this contradiction stems from the lack of measurement systems that are appropriate for AICs. The measures used in studies are meant for the general population, not individuals …

Coli@Fire2024: Findings Of Word-Level Code-Mixed Language Identification In Dravidian Languages, Asha Hegde, Fazlourrahman Balouchzahi, Sabur Butt, Sharal Coelho, Kavya G, Harshitha S. Kumar, Sonith D, Shashirekha H. L., Ameeta Agrawal

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Code-mixing, a linguistic phenomenon where multiple languages are blended within a single text, has become increasingly prevalent in multilingual societies, particularly in digital communication. The CoLI-Dravidian shared task, organized as part of Forum for Information Retrieval and Evaluation (FIRE) 2024, aimed to address these challenges by inviting researchers to develop models capable of classifying words in code-mixed texts involving Dravidian languages — Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tulu - interwoven with English. The task presents significant challenges due to the complexity of linguistic structures, mixed-language tokens, and dialectal variations, especially in low-resource languages like those in the Dravidian family. The participating …

Discourse Analysis Of Partner-Focus In Intimate Partner Violence, Maureen Theresa Lowell

Dissertations and Theses

Intimate partner violence (IPV) involves behaviors that harm or threaten to harm an intimate partner; but more importantly, it involves the production of power and control in an intimate relationship that threatens a partner's liberty and wellbeing. As a wicked problem, IPV is challenging to unpack without reducing the complexities that give it its power. This study seeks to explore the complex nature of how abusive men's focus on their partner functions as a mechanism of abuse. To develop the concept of other-focus I draw on constructs of coercive control, power, and dominance. To investigate partner-focus, I conducted a discourse …

Alignment Of Perceptual Similarity Metrics With Human Perception, Abhijay Ghildyal

Dissertations and Theses

Perceptual similarity metrics are used for quantitatively evaluating the similarity between two images as it would appear to human perception. These metrics aim to mimic the human visual system, providing a more accurate assessment of visual similarity. Such visual assessments are considered to be more advanced than simple pixel-wise comparisons such as ℓ_p norm distances. Thus, a human-like assessment of visual similarity, makes the metrics valuable for applications in image compression, restoration, and enhancement, where evaluating perceptual quality is crucial. Perceptual similarity metrics have progressively become more correlated with human judgments on perceptual similarity; however, despite recent advances, the …

Responding To The Needs Of Dementia Care Partners: Recommendations For Policy Change At The State And Federal Levels., Walter D. Dawson, Jenn Reed, Allison Lindauer, Sherril B. Gelmon

Institute on Aging Publications

The need to optimize supports of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) care partners through policy innovation is high. This study sought to frame the care and support needs of multiple historically underrepresented populations who may be underserved and/or have difficulty accessing culturally specific services and determine specific policies that may reduce ADRD care partner burden and improve wellbeing. Qualitative data were gathered through interviews ( = 24) with leaders of organizations that support people living with ADRD and focus groups ( = 5) with dementia care partners from four communities historically underserved in the United States (Asian, Black, Indigenous, …

Critical Mineral Mining And Native American Rights, Spencer Beeman Janes

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the intersection between critical mineral mining and Native Americans' rights. Critical minerals are essential for creating electric and sustainable energy sources that fuel the world's evolving technological landscape. The United States is making a concerted effort to mine these minerals on American soil due to their vital role in serving the U.S economy and national defense. However, many of these mineral reserves lie within close proximity to Native American reservations, and mining them directly impacts Native American communities. The development of critical mineral mines can offer substantial benefits to indigenous communities, but they also have the capacity …

Beyond Translating Cultures: Organizational Cultural Brokering And Latin@/E/X Community Resilience After The "Mobile Home Parks" Fire, Christine Atalie Da Rosa

Dissertations and Theses

As wildfires increase in frequency and severity in rural communities, disaster management agencies are seeking to collaborate with community-based organizations (CBOs) working with rural, low-income Latin@/e/x communities to build wildfire resilience. This qualitative case study examines the critical role of CBOs rooted in their local, predominately low-income Latin@/e/x communities as cultural brokers in supporting Latin@/e/x wildfire survivors following the 2020 "Mobile Home Parks" Fire in a rural county in Oregon. Drawing from 23 semi-structured interviews, three focus groups, a review of relevant documents, and participant observations, the research investigates how Latin@/e/x CBOs navigated the complex cultural landscape between wildfire survivors …

The Art Of Memory: The Medieval Peutinger Map, Amber Shrewsbury

Dissertations and Theses

The Peutinger map is an enigma: a twelfth-century map of the Roman Empire, it is secular and oddly shaped, its dimensions distorted to show Rome at the center of the world. Its creator, purpose, and provenance currently remain lost to history. Long considered by classicists to be a copy of a lost Roman original, the map has not been seriously examined by medievalists, possibly because it does not adhere to the Christian "T-O" style of medieval mappaemundi.

While other scholars have focused on what the Peutinger map reflects about ancient Rome, I have chosen to explore how the Peutinger …

I, As In We, Cj Maruyama

Dissertations and Theses

I, as in We is a hybrid collection of poems, essays, fictional letters, documents, and photographs through which the author revisits ancestors and explores their multiracial roots. Drawing on stories, interviews and research grounded in the Japanese American experience, the collection develops a call-and-response polyvocality that spans generations and geographies. In its use of white space, form experimentation, and tonal shifts, the work confronts the fluid, often ambiguous boundaries that shape identity. The compiled written and visual materials evolve into an original document--one that reaches toward heritage, belonging, and truth.

The People's Rivers: Early Environmental Regulation And The Oregon State Sanitary Authority, Avery Morgan Fischer

Dissertations and Theses

The environmental movement in Oregon can trace its origins to the turn of the twentieth century, where citizen activism and initiative led to the creation of an early environmental regulatory agency, the Oregon State Sanitary Authority. This creation established that the State of Oregon had a duty to preserve, not just the navigability or usability of rivers and waterways, but the quality and purity of its water. The Oregon State Sanitary Authority played an active role in maintaining and protecting the environment as a mandate of the people, and throughout its thirty-year existence battling industrial polluters, reluctant municipalities, and disinterested …

The Call Of Cucurrucucú, Rachel Olivia Blair

Dissertations and Theses

This is a site of geologic excavation; where charged voices like porous monoliths and forked-tongue shapeshifters call out in fragmented polyphony. What lies broken or misshapen, what can be pieced back together.

What is purity when the body that is being inherited is drowning in murky waters.

Occurrence Of Pesticides In Oregon Coastal Waters And Effects On The Intertidal Sea Anemone, Anthopleura Elegantissima, Gabriella Mae Bleil

Dissertations and Theses

Pesticides are used globally for a wide range of applications including agricultural, forestry, roadsides, freshwater systems, and personal use. While pesticides have ensured efficient crop production, they are frequently transported away from application sites and are ubiquitous in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Pesticides are often detected in watersheds and rivers globally, which can have unintentional toxic effects on non-target organisms by interfering with cellular processes, behavior, feeding, reproduction, and disrupting endocrine processes. The aggregating anemone, Anthopleura elegantissima, is an important species along the North American Pacific coast due to its symbiotic relationships that contribute to high productivity, and its …

One Health Policy Communities’ Perspectives On Zoonoses Risk Factors And Management: A Multiple Qualitative Methods Approach, Lisset M. Dumet, Erin Kenzie, Julia M. Goodman, Veronika Merino Osorio, Vanessa Cruz Chavez, Ruth Atto, Percy Vilchez Barreto, Seth O’Neal

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Zoonoses emergence and endemicity are serious global public health problems that disproportionately affect low-resource settings. One Health (OH) serves as a framework to understand the interconnection of zoonoses risk factors and incentivizes collaboration, coordination, and communication among sectors. However, OH encounters barriers related to power imbalances, gaps in coordination, and conflicts of interest among diverse communities of practice, which are groups that share a problem and domain of interest and engage in collective learning. This research aims to elucidate the mental models of policy communities, which are representations of the environment, and how humans explain and predict their surroundings to …

Feeling Underqualified And Out Of My League: Motivational And Affective Paths To Adaptive And Maladaptive Behaviors, Gamze Koseoglu, Sejin Keem, Aysegul Karaeminogullari, Berrin Erdogan, Talya N. Bauer, Eyup Burak Sancak

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study explored the motivational and affective implications of perceived underqualification, specifically examining how it leads to increased levels of envy and help-seeking behaviors. We predicted that envy and help seeking behaviors would in turn indirectly relate to interpersonal deviance and task performance. We further hypothesized that two psychological resources, hope and self-efficacy, would moderate the relationships between perceived underqualification, envy, and help seeking. We tested our model with a sample of 149 medical school students who were undergoing a clinical rotation as well as their rotation coordinators at a university hospital located in northwestern Turkey. Data collection spanned four …

Building Belonging Infrastructure In Cities: Arts/Culture-Based Critical Participatory Action Research And Youth, Kimberly Rae Nightingale

Dissertations and Theses

Belonging is a critical human need. Urban planning's history of bureaucratic expertise continues to champion the powerful, resulting in structures and procedures that still separate and damage city communities. This research challenges the current hegemony of urban planning that centers geography--the container of land--in its practice. Instead, centering the belonging of people to each other is the essential quality of healthy urban planning. A people-centered urban planning practice where the community's people are the experts and decision-makers of their own cities--and belonging is the primary objective--is long overdue.

Arts/culture-based critical participatory action research (PAR)--where the research questions, design, data collection, …

Sustainability Of Recycling Perovskite Solar Cells: Economic And Environmental Perspectives, Juan P. Herrera Meza

Dissertations and Theses

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are among the most promising next-generation photovoltaic technologies due to their high efficiency and low production costs. Nonetheless, concerns about the toxicity of lead-based absorbers and the lack of standardized recycling protocols present substantial environmental and economic challenges. This thesis provides a comparative life-cycle environmental and economic evaluation of eight state-of-the-art PSC recycling processes. This assessment adheres to ISO 14040/44 standards and combines environmental and cost analyses. Solvent reuse is explicitly modeled for recovery of each functional layer (back contact, absorber, hole-transport, and TCO/glass) to reflect industrial practices. The results show that while most methods reduce …

The Answer To Perimenstrual Distress Is Not Automatically Prescription: Review Of Allopathic And Integrative Approaches To Mental Health Care For Pms & Pmdd Symptoms, Grace Oja

University Honors Theses

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) affect a notable percentage of people who menstruate. PMS/PMDD have a wide range of symptoms that negatively impact mental well-being and quality of life. This review is the culmination of a database search to review current allopathic treatments for PMS/PMDD, which often include oral contraceptives and antidepressants, and explore evidence-based methods for integrative and alternative treatments to address some of the limitations of standard allopathic care, including limitations on which symptoms they address and side effects. This paper aims to examine how integrative medicine may expand existing treatments for PMS and PMDD …

Regional And District Trends In Oregon’S Post-Pandemic School Enrollment And Achievement, Madhu Narayanan

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Oregon has been highlighted as a state with large student enrollment changes after the pandemic, as well as persistent learning loss. Unlike many other states in the nation, this learning loss has persisted. This paper goes beyond the statewide trends to examine regional and district level patterns in both enrollment changes and learning outcomes. One major finding is that while districts in all regions experienced enrollment changes, Large Urban and Suburban districts had notable enrollment declines. These declines were driven by a decrease in White students. Meanwhile, Suburban districts had increases in Asian, Black, and Multiracial students. Another finding is …

Illuminating Two Secondary Schoolteachers’ Praxes On A ‘Terrain Of Freedom:’ Lessons For Teacher Education, Paul Tarc, Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, Tasha Ausman, Catherine James

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This paper attunes to the stated focus of this special issue—teacher subjectivities on a terrain of freedom—to consider the qualities, possibilities and limits of teachers’ praxes and development upon this ‘terrain.’ In response to the call, we explore three critical questions: 1) Where does the teacher’s freedom lie amidst required protocols and standardization?; 2) Can teachers transcend how they have been conceived and conditioned?; and 3) How can teachers engage in transformative development? Through a "poetics of teaching," inspired by Hansen (2004), we frame teaching as a curricular and pedagogical art form that melds interdisciplinary, intellectual, aesthetic, and …

Let's Chat About Spoken Discourse: A Tutorial To Support Use Of Spoken Discourse Analysis When Providing Aphasia Clinical Services., Manaswita Dutta, Laura L. Murray, Hyejin Park, Elizabeth Burklow, Arpita Bose, Hana Kim, Kathryn Greenslade, Amy E. Ramage, Collean Combs, Anusha Balasubramanian, Marianne Casilio

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Spoken discourse is integral to everyday communication; improving discourse outcomes is a primary goal for individuals with aphasia and their families. Consequently, the application of discourse analysis in aphasia assessment and treatment has gained increasing attention in both research and clinical settings. Despite its recognized value among researchers and clinicians, several barriers-such as limited time, inadequate training, and lack of resources-continue to impede the widespread use of discourse analysis into clinical practice. To facilitate its broader adoption, speech-language pathologists require access to comprehensive resources that include information on discourse tasks, outcome measures, psychometric properties, and practical examples of how to …

Religious Identity, Linked Fate, And Political Ideology: Explaining Civil Rights Philanthropy Among Muslim And Jewish Americans, Rafeel Wasif, Afshan Paarlberg, Shariq Siddiqui, David King

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social identity theory predicts that individuals prefer to give to people with the same identity as themselves. However, individuals have multiple identities that interact simultaneously. For instance, religion is an essential identity for many individuals, particularly those from racialized minority groups, such as Muslims and Jews, who are often discriminated against due to these identities. Moreover, individuals like to support faith-based causes. However, they may also feel that they have a linked fate identity, where they perceive a commonality with other persecuted minorities due to similar experiences of discrimination. Moreover, political ideology is another vital identity marker for many individuals. …

Understanding The Care Needs Of People With Post-Stroke Aphasia: A Qualitative Study Of Stroke Care Transitions, Amy B. Thomas, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Lonnie A. Nelson, Catherine R. Van Son, Celestina Barbosa-Leiker

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Communication difficulties experienced by people with aphasia (PWA) cause disconnects between meaningful conversations and care received. The purpose of this study was to identify concepts PWA define as (1) the most critical facilitators to transitional care and communicative access success, and (2) transitional care and communicative barriers. A qualitative descriptive study design was utilized. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six PWA and two communication partners and analyzed using directed content analysis, guided by the theory of Human Scale Development. Findings revealed that barriers and facilitators centered on three Needs: (1) Participation: Participation in life events was directly related to public …

Heightened Risk: Childhood Trauma And Anticipatory Grief Exacerbate The Impact Of Loneliness On Depressive Symptoms And Lps-Stimulated Cytokines In Dementia Caregivers, Kelly N. Brice, Jensine Paoletti-Hatcher, E Lydia Wu-Chung, Vincent D. Lai, Daniel L. Argueta, Michelle A. Chen, Itee Mahant, Bryan T. Denny, Charles Green, Luis D. Medina, Multiple Additional Authors

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Dementia spousal caregivers are at a disproportionate risk for adverse mental and physical health outcomes. Loneliness is associated with depressive symptoms and proinflammatory cytokine production among caregivers. Additionally, childhood trauma, anticipatory grief, and poor sleep quality are all associated with enhanced stress reactivity. This study used a cross-sectional design to investigate whether loneliness is associated with proinflammatory cytokine production and depressive symptoms in caregivers, and whether these relationships are strongest among caregivers who report high levels of childhood trauma, high amounts of anticipatory grief, or poor sleep quality. A sample of 111 dementia spousal caregivers provided blood samples and completed …

Examining The Anxiolytic Effects Of Flavonoids In Passionflower: A Gut-Brain Axis Perspective, Khelen R. Walsh

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

This literature review investigates the influence of Passiflora incarnata on the Gut-Brain Axis, focusing on the role of flavonoids and the specific biological mechanisms involved in this process. The study aims to identify Passiflora incarnata as a practical, non-harmful, and cost-effective alternative to current modern anxiety medications. This study also emphasizes the need for further clinical trials to integrate Passiflora incarnata further into healthcare settings. Using a narrative review approach, this analysis will examine pre-existing empirical articles, all of which have been found on credible sites, are peer-reviewed, and have been published within the past twenty-five years. The data discussed …

The Role Of Neuroscience In Mental Health Management Within The Adhd Population, Kadi Rae Smith

University Honors Theses

Neuroscience-based educational interventions play a role in the management of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), including the regulation of ADHD-correlated depression and anxiety. Existing research shows that elevated rates of depression correspond to anxiety within the ADHD community; approximately 8.83% of the global population. Social ostracization and isolation are established contributors to depression and anxiety which are commonly comorbid with ADHD. The need exists for further investigation of the beneficial impact that an accurate, biological understanding of how the brain works has on the mental health of the ADHD population, and by extension their families, education systems, and medical industries. …

Trauma In The Middle Ages: The Viking Experience Of Trauma Through Saga, Kagan L. Vogt

University Honors Theses

Trauma is a fundamental part of human experience and the ways in which human beings experience trauma differs drastically depending on the time and culture represented. Research on trauma in the Middle Ages does exist, however, often offers windows into very narrow intersections within the study of historical trauma. Other cultures and particularly oral traditions lack the same attention from scholars in trauma. The specific experience of Vikings as referenced in the oral tradition of sagas offers a unique window into the traumatic experience of Vikings as well as how they responded to trauma. This unique response to trauma is …

Beyond The Genome: The Racialized Exposome, Flourishing, And Stress Biology In African Americans, A Non-Exhaustive Review, Enye Washington

University Honors Theses

Racial health disparities remain an enduring challenge in the United States, disproportionately impacting African American communities through higher rates of chronic disease and premature mortality. This non-exhaustive literature explores how the racialized exposome - a term denoting the totality of social, environmental, and structural stressors rooted in systemic racism - biologically embeds itself via stress-responsive pathways. Specifically, it examines the interaction between racial stress, flourishing, and key biological markers, including allostatic load and telomere length, considering the gut-brain axis. The review highlights robust evidence that chronic exposure to racial discrimination and structural adversity contributes to multisystem dysregulation and accelerated cellular …