Digital Commons Network^™

A Climatology Of Heat Domes Over North America, Paul C. Loikith, Siiri Bigalke, Graham P. Taylor, Dmitri A. Kalashnikov, Deepti Singh, Amanda Laverty

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The term heat dome in reference to extreme heat events has grown in popularity. While a heat dome definition has recently been added to the Glossary of the American Meteorological Society, a quantitative meteorological definition is currently lacking. Here we present such a definition and use it to develop a novel 85-year climatology of extreme heat and associated mid-tropospheric circulation over mid-latitude North America. Our definition groups extreme heat objects (EHOs), defined daily as spatially contiguous regions where 2-m maximum temperature exceeds the May-September 99th percentile, into two categories: those directly associated with a 500-hPa closed anticyclone and those that …

Guilty Plea Appeals Across Two States: Who Appeals And Who Wins?, Jacqueline G. Lee, Kelsey S. Henderson, Mason Scott

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Though the vast majority of criminal convictions stem from guilty pleas, what occurs after the plea is relatively unknown. Data on appeals of guilty pleas was collected from two states to explore the prevalence and outcomes of guilty plea appeals, in addition to characteristics of those cases. One state produced approximately 5.5 times more plea appeal opinions per month than the other. Interestingly, one state's appeals largely centered around excessive sentencing claims (73.6%), while the other saw a range of grounds (e.g., ineffective assistance of counsel). Appealing defendants in one state almost always lost (only a 2% likelihood of success), …

Disparities Between Rural And Urban Patients With Epilepsy In Oregon From Time Of Seizure Onset To Genetic Testing And Surgical Treatment, Bahar Madani

University Honors Theses

Drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) is associated with significant morbidity and worsened outcomes when access to specialized epilepsy care is delayed. Rural populations may face additional barriers to neurological evaluation, genetic testing, and epilepsy surgery due to geographic and healthcare access limitations. This retrospective cohort study evaluated disparities in epilepsy care timelines among rural and urban patients treated at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), one of Oregon's two Level 4 epilepsy centers. Electronic health record data were reviewed for 110 patients, including 80 urban and 30 rural patients. Variables included age at seizure onset, age at genetic testing, age at epilepsy …

Effects Of Recurving Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclones On Downstream Ridges Over Pacific-Western North America, Xiaoyu Bai, Dmitri A. Kalashnikov, Paul Loikith, Siiri Bigalke, Alex Mitchell, Mingfang Ting, Lance F. Bosart, Deepti Singh

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recurving tropical cyclones (TC) in the Western North Pacific can affect the atmospheric circulation over Pacific‐Western North America (PWNA) via interactions with the midlatitude circulation. Using reanalysis and tropical cyclone best‐track data, we examine how recurving TCs that make extratropical transition modulate 500‐hPa ridge characteristics over PWNA during the peak (June‐September) and late (October–December) seasons. TCs recurving at lower latitudes are associated with more intense and poleward‐centered ridges relative to TCs recurving at higher latitudes, and TCs that recurve farther west are associated with relatively westward‐centered ridges. Characteristics of the prevailing midlatitude flow such as its amplitude and positioning relative …

Ballots And Beliefs: Diverging Views On Election Integrity From The Public And Officials, Anita Manion, David C. Kimball, Paul Manson, Paul Gronke, Joseph Anthony

Center for Public Service Publications and Reports

Public opinion about election integrity and election administration is frequently cited in policy debates in the United States. Due to their role in administering elections, local election officials (LEOs) provide an authoritative voice on election-related matters. Yet it remains unclear whether differences between LEO and public opinion reflect compositional differences between these groups or fundamentally distinct ways of evaluating election integrity and reform. We compare the main predictors of opinions about election administration for LEOs and the public in the United States on election integrity, voting values, and election reforms using national surveys from 2020 and 2024. We find that …

Blueprints Of City Planning: How Function And Symbolism Have Shaped Our Cities, Elinor J. Stoll

Young Historians Conference

Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. While that wasn’t always the case, cities have existed for millennia, and humans have been planning them for just as long. This paper examines the history of urban planning, from the Indus Valley civilization to Washington DC and New Orleans, into the future of planned cities like the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia. It examines the commonalities between cities across time and establishes a timeline of the emergence of different patterns in city planning history. Among the examples discussed are the Indus Valley civilization, the Ancient Greek city of …

Little Africa In Global China: Transnational Nigerians In Guangzhou And The Making Of Xiaobei, Tess L. Nestel

Young Historians Conference

This paper will examine the history and development of transnationalism fostered by Nigerians in Guangzhou, China, after the late 1990s. Spurred in part by the Asian Financial Crisis, Nigerian men flocked to Guangzhou’s thriving import-export economy. They established the ethnic enclave of Xiaobei, where many lived and engaged in the informal wholesale economy. Nigerians existed between the cultural boundaries of Xiaobei and Lagos, where they constantly returned. Both the export economy in Guangzhou and the resale economy in Lagos’ street markets were deeply influenced by one another through entrepreneurial migrants. This paper will provide a general overview of the many …

A Battle Of Will And Wisdom: Polar Opposites In The Polar Extremes Of The Viking World, Lily C. Manne

Young Historians Conference

This paper explores the connection between the polar climate of Viking-age Scandinavia and the success of the Vikings through examining the dual nature of their culture brought about by their environment. The Scandinavian peninsula is known for its harsh, variable climate full of cold winters and unpredictable harvests that turned into long summers and melting fjords. Outside of shaping survival strategies and material culture, this polar environment seeped into the fundamental cultural values the Vikings exhibited, creating the foundation for a society that understood the value of destruction and violence as well as creation and craftsmanship. Using Norse mythology as …

Key Issues For Speed Safety Cameras: Results From A Semi-Structured Interview Of Agencies In The United States, Sophia Semensky, Miguel Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Speed safety cameras (SSCs) are a recognized countermeasure for targeting speeding-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities. SSCs have been introduced in various cities and are steadily expanding in use both in the U.S. and internationally. The extensive literature review of domestic and international documents and research papers reveals that the U.S. has been comparatively slow to adopt SSCs, with some other countries implementing these systems more extensively and earlier. Many local agencies are eager to learn SSC best practices and implementation lessons within the U.S. context. In this research, key issues related to SSC implementation are explored through semi-structured interviews with …

The Pathways Study: Findings From Surveys Of People With Recent Experience Of Homelessness In Multnomah County, Kathleen P. Conte, Amy Laird, Desiree' J. Duboise, Susan Avila, Carlton Bone, Transformational Research For Equity And Experience In Shelter (Trees) Committee, Marisa Zapata

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Publications and Presentations

As historic levels of funding to resolve and prevent homelessness draws down in Multnomah County, entities providing homeless services want to know the most effective ways of supporting people experiencing homelessness. The “Pathways” study aims to help answer that question. Through surveys and interviews, we sought to understand how people navigate their lives while homeless, and in particular how they interacted with homeless services. Overall, the findings reinforce what previous studies have found: people want housing, need housing to be affordable and within their means, and value helpful effective services. This report presents findings from surveys with 541 people with …

Mental Health Under Pressure: A Scoping Review Of Suicide In The Dental Workforce, Man Hung, Spencer John, Nicholas Beasley, Amir Mohajeri, Connor Schwartz, Martin S. Lipsky

Institute on Aging Publications

Aims:

Suicide among healthcare professionals is a growing concern. Despite evidence of high psychological distress in dental practice, suicide in dentists remains underexplored. This scoping review systematically examined the literature on suicide and suicidal ideation among dentists, including prevalence, risk factors, and temporal trends.

Methods:

Searches of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Dentistry and Oral Sciences Source identified English-language studies reporting suicide, suicidal ideation, or related mental-health risks in dental professionals. Duplicates were removed; titles/abstracts and full texts were screened against predefined criteria. Data were extracted and thematically analysed.Results Fourteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were mostly retrospective …

An Assessment Of Historical Planning Processes And Greenspace Distribution (1975–2024): A Case Study Of Portland, Oregon, Usa, Quadri Olatunbosun Taiwo, Vivek Shandas, Damilola Emmanuel Oluyege

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Portland study examined past planning regulations and greenspace distribution over the period of fifty years, with particular attention given to neighborhood differences between invested and non-invested neighborhoods. This exploratory study examined spatial greenspace using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) imagery. We tested the study hypothesis using the GIS Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression test to predict how key sociodemographic characteristics affect the provision of greenspace in non-white disinvested neighborhoods. The key findings suggested a consistent pattern of greenspace inequality, heavily shaped by historically disadvantaged ethnic status. Areas with higher non-white populations may have significant less greenspace (p < 0.001). Although median household income had a minimal negative impact, educational attainment showed a slight positive correlation. We employed multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks such as historical institutionalism, urban political ecology, and environmental justice. The study illustrated how historical decisions may have established path dependencies that are currently perpetuating greenspace inequalities. Policy solutions advocate for integrating restorative justice principles and rigid enforcement of 3-30-300 greenspace equity legislation to offset these long-term disparities.

Arid: Agglomerative Regionalization Via Information Divergence, A Novel Clustering Algorithm For Geo-Spatial Data, Joshua David Sills

Dissertations and Theses

Regionalization is a clustering problem that seeks to partition geospatial data into geographically contiguous regions while remaining internally homogeneous in their attributes. It has been successfully applied towards the development of urban planning, natural resource discovery, and ecological analysis. Existing popular approaches optimize homogeneity using Euclidean or variance-based criteria, which ignore distributional differences such as variance shifts, multimodality, and higher-order dependence. This thesis introduces ARID (Agglomerative Regionalization via Information Divergence), a spatially constrained agglomerative clustering framework that replaces distance-based merging with an information-theoretic, Ward-like criterion that utilizes the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence. ARID constructs a neighborhood graph from coordinate space and …

Drowning Prevention In The West: Who Did It Better?, Arran Hedley

University Honors Theses

This paper aims to communicate the differences on how the US, UK and Australia have approached drowning prevention in each of their nations. This paper addresses drowning statistics within each nation, national, state and local policies, access to public facilities, and the preventative strategies, swim lessons and Lifeguarding. These are the criteria each nation is being graded upon, because each criteria is a factor that can help mitigate drowning deaths.

For literature around this subject, there are many papers on each individual nation's approach to drowning but in researching there does not appear to be a comparison of the nations' …

Using A Place-Based Harms Typology To Inform Community Practice And Research: Illustrative Cases And Contexts, Jason Sawyer, Greer A. Hamilton, Amie Thurber, Amy Krings

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Place-based harms comprise direct threats to community wellbeing within the spaces where people live. These harms, rooted in structural and cultural violence, are codified in policies and programs that contribute to poverty, homelessness, over-policing and surveillance, and environmental injustices. This paper argues, although community practitioners are needed to work alongside communities impacted by place-based harms, there are critical tensions and tradeoffs embedded within the place-based strategies. To illustrate this, we draw from the Contested Places Typology and present cases that highlight key tensions, tradeoffs, and nuances associated with its six approaches: (1) Reparation, (2) Remembrance, (3) Regeneration, (4) Resistance, (5) …

Mapping Fire Management: A Spatial Social Network Approach, Christoph Neger, Cody Evers, Kapil Yadav, Octavio Romero Cuapio

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Maps are an essential tool to inform fire governance and management. For instance, they can highlight which areas are most vulnerable to adverse fire impacts or be used to plan interventions for risk reduction and prevention. In recent years, several studies have mapped the fire management activities and the networks between the multitude of involved actors. They build upon previous advances to combine quantitative and qualitative social network analysis with geographical analysis and cartography, aiming to highlight areas of opportunity to enhance fire governance. This paper continues this line of research, examining cooperation in fire management within the south-eastern part …

Temperature And Sex Ratios At Birth, Jasmin Abdel Ghany, Joshua Wilde, Anna Dimitrova, Ridhi Kashyap, Raya Muttarak

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Human sex ratios at birth (SRBs) shape population composition and are closely linked to maternal health and gender discrimination. In the context of environmental change, SRBs may theoretically be skewed by physiological or behavioral responses to exposure to extreme heat. However, evidence for this is limited. In this study, we estimate the effect of prenatal exposure to temperature on birth sex by linking survey data on 5 million live births in 33 sub-Saharan African countries and India with high-resolution temperature data. To distinguish between spontaneous and induced abortions, we exploit sociodemographic differentials, exposure timing, and regional differences in son preference. …

Crispr Spacers Reveal Diverse And Abundant Thermococcales Viruses In Hydrothermal Vents, Ryan Catchpole, Justin Mclean, Emily St John, Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Mart Krupovic, Michael P. Terns

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Viruses are the most pervasive biological entities on Earth and they profoundly shape host ecology and evolution. However, for many microbial lineages, knowledge of their viromes remains limited, especially for those inhabiting remote environments, including deep-sea ecosystems. Here, we leverage one of the most extensively cultivated and genomically characterized archaeal lineages, the Thermococcales, to identify novel viral genomes. By utilizing CRISPR spacers from isolates and spacer arrays reconstructed from metagenomes, we mined mobile genetic elements (MGEs) in 1,172 publicly available and newly sequenced hydrothermal vent metagenomic datasets. Comparative genomics and identification of viral hallmark proteins revealed 620 viral genomes across …

Adolescent Math Anxiety: Teachers' Grouping Approach At The Intersection Of Multiple Student Identities, Dara Shifrer, Hannah Sean Ellefritz, David Hernandez-Saca, Allison Roda, Karla Santana Martinez

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Math anxiety represents a substantial barrier to many students’ math learning. In this paper, we apply interdisciplinary perspectives to data on over 13,200 ninth graders and their math teachers from the High School Longitudinal Study. Results suggest that being perceived as dis/abled relates to heightened math anxiety regardless of adolescents’ gender, or race and ethnicity. Our intersectional approach reveals that adolescents’ expressions of math anxiety do not always correspond with gender, racial, and ethnic stereotypes, with Black girls, Black boys, and Latine boys expressing relatively low levels of math anxiety. Finally, consistent with the principles of inclusion and universal design, …

Post-Wildfire Water Quality And Aquatic Ecosystem Response In The U.S. Pacific Northwest: Science And Monitoring Gaps, Sara Wall, Jana E Compton, Ashley A. Coble, Beth M. Haley, Jiajia Lin, Allison Myers-Pigg, Justin Reale, Katie Wampler, Kevin D. Bladon, Kurt Carpenter, Heejun Chang, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

An increase in the occurrence of large, high severity wildfires in the western Pacific Northwest (PNW), USA, has created an urgent need for science to better inform forest management and policy decisions to maintain source water quality in the region. The western PNW faces similar challenges to other regions with shifting wildfire regimes and large population centers reliant on surface water from forested catchments. However, the uniquely wet and highly seasonal climate of the western PNW suggests that findings from other, more frequently burned regions may not be directly applicable. To identify science, monitoring, and management gaps and opportunities in …

The Hottest Areas In U.S. Cities Are Losing The Most Greenery, Yunjae Ock, Vivek Shandas

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Due to the significantly increasing impacts of urban heat, cities are seeking to expand tree canopy, parks and other forms of greenery to reduce temperatures. Despite these efforts, few studies have examined the relationship between neighborhood-scale thermal conditions and changes in green spaces. The present study drew on high-resolution, near-surface air temperature measurements in 33 U.S. cities to answer two research questions: (1) to what extent did these cities’ greenery change from 2013 to 2022? and (2) did these study areas have an increase in greenery within neighborhoods exhibiting the hottest air temperatures? Results suggest that 72.7% of cities are …

The Scope And Impact Of Walking The Talk For Dementia 2024, Sherril B. Gelmon, Kate Irving, Walter Dawson, Jonathan Adrián Zegarra-Valdivia, Lingani Mbakile-Mahlanza, Fernando Aguzzoli-Peres

Institute on Aging Publications

Walking the Talk for Dementia (WTD) is a global educational initiative integrating a walk along the Camino de Santiago with a symposium to combat dementia stigma, raise awareness, and foster inclusion.

"We're Going To Tear Up The Caldera So We Can Have An Electric Car": Wrestling With Prospective Lithium Mining In The Oregon Desert, Elizabeth Bartholomew, Alida Cantor, Kate Berry, Noel Vineyard

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extraction of lithium, a key ingredient for renewable energy transitions, is a land- and water-intensive process. In this study, we use qualitative, place-based research to explore socio-environmental imaginaries surrounding a landscape on the verge of change due to lithium mining. We examine the ways that different actors are wrestling with the costs, benefits, and uncertainties of potential open-pit lithium mining in Oregon’s section of the McDermitt Caldera. In contrast to previous research which has described support for mining amongst those closest to the mine site, we find that in this case, perceptions of mining are characterized by ambivalence, uncertainty, and …

Thinking Otherwise With Children In Cities: A Storying Approach To Co-Researching With Children And Teachers, William A. Parnell, Sally Guyon

Leadership, Learning and Counseling Faculty Publications and Presentations

This Children in Cities research project examines an approach to storying research that foregrounds collaborative meaning-making between educators and young children in their city. Through exploring how educators and young children might “think otherwise” about teaching, learning, and participation with history, Place noticing and entanglements between humans, more-than-human, and non-humans, three stories and a metaphor surface in the data. Drawing on three stories, metaphor is employed as an analytic and integrative device to deepen interpretation of lived experiences. Central to the methodology is a democratic orientation that seeks to reduce hierarchical boundaries, engaging children aged 3–5 as co-researchers in the …

Cognitive And Economic Development, John Luke Gallup

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

A burgeoning literature has found that early childhood health conditions of individuals have large causal effects on their cognitive development, education and earnings. How much does early cognitive development contribute to the national economy? Although researchers have long studied the role of worker health for economic growth, they have not assessed the role of early cognitive development.

Cognitive ability is the foundation of human capital, affecting both educational attainment and economic growth. The risk factors for poor cognitive development are very high in many countries. Each risk factor also causes child mortality, making child survival a viable proxy for good …

Using Maximum Entropy (Maxent) Tool In Arcgis Pro For Species Distribution Modelling Of Pseudoscorpions In The Pacific Northwest, Elliot Toshihiro Cochran

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to create Species Distribution Models (SDMs) is rising among many scientific disciplines. Many professionals who were not originally focused on GIS are increasingly becoming more invested in this technology. SDMs are widely used to estimate species’ potential geographic distributions and to evaluate the environmental factors that constrain their ranges. The presence-only maximum entropy (MaxEnt) algorithm implemented in the MaxEnt tool in ArcGIS Pro was used in this project to model habitat suitability for two species of pseudoscorpions, M. pacificus and an undescribed species, in Oregon and Washington. Presence points (of specimen sample locations) …

A Guide To Human Ecology Mapping: An Approach For Understanding Human-Environment Connections, Thien-Kim Bui, Rebecca J. Mclain, David Banis, Lee Cerveny

Occasional Papers in Geography

Occasional Papers in Geography Publication No. 9

Places matter to people, and maps can help people and communities share why places matter. Over the past 30 years, public participation GIS (PPGIS) and other forms of human ecology mapping (HEM) have become important ways for agencies, non-governmental organizations, environmental and community advocacy groups, university researchers, and others to learn about or advocate for what matters to people about landscapes they visit, use, or love.

HEM is a method for mapping human-environment interactions and connections. This manual is intended for the planner or practitioner who is interested in using HEM to strengthen …

Drag’S Impact On Drag Lives, José L. Oropeza Iii

Anthós

Drag’s Impact On Drag Lives

In light of recent political developments where Drag and Trans identities are being punished, why do people still participate in Drag? If there are repercussion to face for being a Drag Queen, then surely it must affect their lives for the better for them to continue the practice.

Through an autoethnographic approach to researching the Portland, OR Drag community, I collected transcripts of conversations with local Queens, took notes of community interactions, and put myself in Drag for the first time as a Queer man to better understand the Drag community and why they Drag. …

Creating Community Through Walking The Talk For Dementia, Kate Irving, Fernando Aguzzoli Peres, Walter D. Dawson, Jonathan Adrián Zegarra-Valdivia, Lingani Mbakile-Mahlanza, Iracema Leroi, Sherril B. Gelmon

Institute on Aging Publications

Objectives

Creating community is not only therapeutic—it has been described as essential. This study explores a process of community-building among people with lived and professional experience in the dementia field, during Walking the Talk for Dementia (WTD), a week-long, immersive event on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Absence of community can lead to fragmented support for both people living with dementia and their care partners and for those working in the field. Achieving a sense of community, however, can be complex.

Methods

A qualitative evaluation was conducted with 79 participants from 27 countries, incorporating pre-, during and post-event reflections. …

Organizational Causes Of Chronic Absenteeism: Unpacking The Conditions For Learning To Increase Regular Attendance, Melissa Glover

Educational Leadership Professional Doctorate Dissertations

This study employed an improvement science methodology, using plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles of improvement, to address the persistent problem of chronic absenteeism within the Gateway School District, where annual absentee rates hovered around 45% and were historically 10% higher for students with disabilities compared to their nondisabled peers. The leadership team engaged in a thorough review of parent and student perceptions of school and aligned findings with Chang’s (2019) conditions for learning framework to pinpoint actionable areas for growth. These findings were then organized into a theory of action using a driver diagram approach. This foundational work led to the identification …