Digital Commons Network^™

Graceful Infrastructure: Harvesting America's Wind Corridor, Samuel Rothacker

University Honors Theses

The central purpose of this thesis was to identify how the choices made by wind farm developers lead to backlash from local community members, focusing primarily on a resistance mentality referred to as NIMBY (Not In My Backyard). The goal of this discussion is to offer wind farm developers a medium by which to understand the causes and concerns of the NIMBY movement, as well as what steps can be taken to address or prevent these issues. Research was pursued by selecting a number of wind farms and searching for correlations between technical specifications and political backlash. By first collecting …

Exo-Genres: Case Study Of Oregon State’S ‘Stage-Gate’ It Review Process, Henry Covey

Technical and Professional Writing Graduate Student Papers

This is a preliminary case study of exogenres, specifically superimposed genre exosystems, i.e., genre frameworks that are prescribed (genre exosystems) which are “laid upon” (superimposed on) writing scenes from outside oversight entity/ies.

This case study gathered and analyzed artifacts, data, and information from a relatively new exosystem in the Oregon state government: the IT project approval process called “Stage Gate,” a mandated regulatory reporting documentation process in effect in Oregon since 2015. The exogenres in Stage Gate were created out of a social action to superimpose IT governance and industry frameworks on state government agencies who build enterprise …

Mathematical Modeling Of Vaccinations: Modified Sir Model, Vaccination Effects, And Herd Immunity, Tina Huyen Luong

University Honors Theses

Despite the clear effects and benefits of vaccinations on a population, there are many individuals that choose to not vaccinate for non-medical reasons, giving rise to anti-vaccination movements and vaccine hesitancy. This paper introduces the different types of vaccines and the effects of vaccines in the body and provides an examination of a case study of the 2019 Pacific Northwest measles outbreak. The outbreak is modeled using a proposed modified SIR model and solved using the Fourth-Order Runge-Kutta method. The results suggest that around day 20, almost the entire population becomes infected with the vaccine-resistant strain, which outcompetes the wild-type …

Designing Katana : Unsheathing The Potential Of Gameplay For Constructing Cultural Memory, Tracy Alan

University Honors Theses

Players take the role of an ambitious samurai in Katana, a tu­rn-based card game designed to evoke the cultural memory of early modern Japanese warriors. Going beyond token use of history as mere fantasy setting, the game synthesizes historical research, communication design methodologies, and interactive design frameworks to create a compelling experience. The design of Katana is influenced by Jason Begy's concept of cultural memory as a broad interdisciplinary approach to formulations of historical content that intentionally go beyond traditional scholarly modalities such as the publication of monographs and journal articles, archaeological surveys, and lectures. The multivalent interactivity of …

Wayless: A Capability-Based Microkernel, Waylon Cude

University Honors Theses

Microkernels are a family of operating system kernels characterized by their small codebase. Due to their small size microkernels provide extra security and reliability as compared to larger, monolithic kernels. When combined with a capability-based architecture these benefits are enhanced, allowing for even greater security through the principle of least privilege. The seL4 microkernel, written in C and formally verified, takes advantage of this capability-based architecture.

Formal verification is an incredibly powerful tool--however, its cost is significant. Rust is a strongly-typed systems programming language that provides numerous safety advantages over C and C++, completely eliminating large classes of bugs. This …

Interactions Of Phosphatidylcholine Vesicles And Citrate-Stabilized Gold Nanoparticles, Marie Vallens

University Honors Theses

Citrate-coated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are increasingly implemented in many biomedical applications due to their novel electrochemical properties and further stabilization against influence from the cellular environment by conjugation of citrate ligands to the exterior of the gold nanocrystalline lattice. AuNPs have the ability to permeate the cell membrane without disturbing the nucleus, with some size regimes, without producing any known toxic effects. This work presents a collection and analysis of time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy data describing the interior of the bilayer of unsaturated 16:0 - 18:1 phosphatidylcholine large unilamellar vesicles when exposed to 5, 10, and 20 [nm]-diameter citrate-capped AuNPs at …

The Relationship Between Teachers' Perceptions Of A Lack Of Parent/Family Support And Teachers' Self-Efficacy, Carson S. Mcnamara

University Honors Theses

Teachers' self-efficacy is shown to be affected by many different factors, including students, parents/families, and schools. Teachers' perception of a lack of parent/family support may be related to their reports of self-efficacy, that is, their perceived ability to successfully teach their students. This study uses data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to investigate the relationship between math teachers' perceived lack of parent/family support and their teaching self-efficacy. This study controlled for teachers' educational attainment, sex, and race to improve the estimates of this relationship. Results show that there is negative relationship between teachers' perceptions of a lack …

A Consideration Of Mesopredator Release And New Zealand's Predator Free Plan: A Literature Review, Kaitlin G. Thomas

University Honors Theses

Invasive mammalian predators are responsible for the loss of biodiversity and species extinctions worldwide: New Zealand is no exception. To protect native species, lethal eradication has become the primary means to control or remove invasive mammalian predators. These control attempts can indirectly affect non-target species through trophic interactions. Eliminating the apex predator can result in a release of lesser predators that can consequently continue causing damage, i.e., suppressing, the native prey population. This ecological interaction among trophic guilds is termed "mesopredator release." The research outlined in the present work provides a review of the concepts underlying mesopredator release, depicts how …

Facial Image Characterization And Reconstruction Using Singular Value Decomposition, Jessica R. Robinson

University Honors Theses

An image reconstruction algorithm is tested by means of a facial image database. Because image processing requires a significant amount of storage and computing power, singular value decomposition, or SVD, is used to harvest the values needed to execute the algorithm. A theoretical framework of SVD is also included. By means of this low-dimensional procedure, images are able to be reconstructed with varying quality.

Reference-Dependence Performance: Managing And Meeting Expectations, Jose A. Rojas-Fallas

University Honors Theses

Reference-dependence has been a topic of interest in recent history for the field of economics. It’s implications that utility is not solely based on outcomes, but rather how outcomes are interpreted from a previously set expectation has the potential to effect many aspects of incentive structures. In this research, subjects complete a real effort task in which they are provided with information that creates shocks in their expectations. These shocks make the individual readjust to the new information, impacting performance in the real-effort task. We conclude that reference-dependence performance is impacted by adjusting reference points that may have a positive …

Species Diversity In The Hypertragulid (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) Population Of The John Day Basin, Oregon, Lana K. Jewell

University Honors Theses

Members of the family Hypertragulidae (order Artiodactyla, class Mammalia) are the most abundant mammals in the Turtle Cove Member (Oligocene) of the John Day Formation of central and eastern Oregon and make up about 40% of the preserved specimens of the John Day Basin. Three species and two separate genera are described in the area, but any preexisting research lacks statistical support for this level of variation. Species designation among extinct artiodactyls is predominantly based on morphological and morphometric examination of dentition, but studies conducted with extant artiodactyls have revealed that this may not be a reliable diagnostic technique. Other …

Simultaneous Bilingual Middle School Students Becoming Biliterate: What Do Students Think About Their Biliteracy As Taught Through The "Bridge" Strategy In A Humanities Dual Language/Immersion Class?, Alma Lucinda Diaz-Philipp

Dissertations and Theses

In response to the increasing number of United States school students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds at all grade levels, often called "simultaneous bilinguals," the U.S. school districts are opening schools that offer bilingual instruction. One instructional strategy that seems promising is the "Bridge," where students contrast and connect the literacy skills learned in one language to the literacy skills in their other language. An underlying component of learning a language is student attitude and motivation to learn. Research also seems to indicate that student attitude and motivation toward biliteracy can affect their achievement. There seems to be a …

Crumpled And Abraded Encryption: Implementation And Provably Secure Construction, Scott Sherlock Griffy

Dissertations and Theses

Abraded and crumpled encryption allows communication software such as messaging platforms to ensure privacy for their users while still allowing for some investigation by law enforcement. Crumpled encryption ensures that each decryption is costly and prevents law enforcement from performing mass decryption of messages. Abrasion ensures that only large organizations like law enforcement are able to access any messages. The current abrasion construction uses public key parameters such as prime numbers which makes the abrasion scheme difficult to analyze and allows possible backdoors. In this thesis, we introduce a new abrasion construction which uses hash functions to avoid the problems …

Creating Mathematics Oer Using Latex, Richard Beveridge

Open Educational Resources Symposium

I recently completed a 550 page Latex-based textbook containing material suitable for College Algebra, Trigonometry, and Pre-Calculus courses.

The poster will show examples from this work.

Adapting, Remixing, And Adopting An Oer In General Chemistry I And Ii, Adelaide E. Clark, Seth Anthony

Open Educational Resources Symposium

Through the generous support of the OIT library and Open Oregon, General Chemistry I and II (CHE 201 and 202) at Oregon Institute of Technology has been able to switch to OER texts this academic year. It is estimated that this switch has saved each student up to $300 per year. The text was remixed from Openstax Chemistry as well as other texts and multimedia and is hosted online via LibreTexts. A printed version was also created to give students an option who prefer printed texts. Besides lowered student cost, benefits include specific tailoring of information for the course, supplements …

Necessary Conditions For Stability Of Vehicle Formations, Pablo Enrique Baldivieso Blanco

Dissertations and Theses

Necessary conditions for stability of coupled autonomous vehicles in R are established in this thesis. The focus is on linear arrays with decentralized vehicles, where each vehicle interacts with only a few of its neighbors. Decentralized means that there is no central authority governing the motion. Instead, each vehicle registers only velocity and position relative to itself and bases its acceleration only on those data. Explicit expressions are obtained for necessary conditions for asymptotic stability in the cases that a system consists of a periodic arrangement of two or three different types of vehicles, i.e. configurations as follows: ...2-1-2-1 or …

On Classification Approaches For Crystallographic Symmetries Of Noisy 2d Periodic Patterns, Peter Moeck

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The existing types of classification approaches for the crystallographic symmetries of patterns that are more or less periodic in two dimensions (2D) are reviewed. Their relative performance is evaluated in a qualitative manner. Pseudo-symmetries of different kinds are discussed as they present severe challenges to most classification approaches when noise levels are moderate to high. The author’s information theory based approaches utilize digital images and geometric Akaike Information Criteria. They perform well in the presence of pseudo-symmetries and turn out to be the only ones that allow for fully objective (completely researcher independent) and generalized noise level dependent classifications of …

A Scoring Model To Assess Organizations' Technology Transfer Capabilities: The Case Of A Power Utility In The Northwest Usa, JoãO Ricardo Lavoie

Dissertations and Theses

This research intends to advance knowledge in the technology management field, most importantly in the study of organizations that develop technologies in-house and wish to enhance their technology transfer performance while maintaining adherence between R&D activities and overall business strategies. The objective was to build a multi-criteria decision-making model capable of producing a technology transfer score, which can be used by practitioners in order to assess and later improve their organizations' technology transfer capabilities -- ultimately aiming to improve technology development as a whole. The model was applied to a major power utility organization in the Pacific Northwest of the …

How Av Could Shape Our Cities - Research From The Netherlands, Gonçalo H. A. Correia

PSU Transportation Seminars

Automated driving has become a hot topic of research in different fields of science. Despite the great advancements in the vehicle technology itself, researchers are now concerned in figuring out what will be the impacts of these vehicles in life as we know it. These impacts can be rather broad from traffic safety to the economy. In this lecture, Goncalo will focus on the research that is being done at TU Delft, a leading university in automated vehicles’ (AVs) impacts research, focusing on urban areas and how mobility, and even the city itself, can change with fully-automated vehicles. Goncalo Correia …

Glacial Meltwater Modeling To Simulate Streamflow And Lake Levels In Taylor Valley, Antarctica, Julian M. Cross, Andrew G. Fountain

Student Research Symposium

The McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) are the largest ice-free region (4,500 km²) in Antarctica. The MDV are a polar desert with an average annual temperature of -18˚C and minimal precipitation, < 50 mm w.e. a^-1. In Taylor Valley (77°35’ S, 163°00’ E), a closed-basin, perennially ice-covered lakes occupy the valley floor. Ephemeral streams transfer glacier meltwater for ~10 weeks each summer. Glacial meltwater accounts for nearly the total inflow to these streams and lakes, groundwater is essentially non-existent. A microbially-dominated ecosystem in Taylor Valley depends on glacier runoff and thus is highly sensitive to changes to the hydroclimatic regime. A model …

Development Of A Design Guideline For Pile Foundations Subjected To Liquefaction-Induced Lateral Spreading, Milad Souri, Arash Khosravifar

Student Research Symposium

Past earthquakes confirmed that seismically induced kinematic loads from soil lateral spreading and inertial loads from structure can cause severe damages to pile foundations. The research questions are:

• How to combine inertial and kinematic loads in design of pile foundations in liquefied soil?
• How the combination of inertia and kinematics changes with depth?
• How this combination is affected by long-duration earthquakes?
• How this combination affects inelastic demands in piles?

Predictive Validity Of A New Self-Report Measure Of Individual Skin Type Through Characterization Of Skin Melanin Using Reflectance Photospectroscopy, Mark Sanchez, Lisa Marriott, Teala Alvord, R. Samatham, S. Chang

Student Research Symposium

In the realm of research and dermatology, the Fitzpatrick Skin Type scale (FST) has been the gold standard of measurement to classify sun sensitivity for human’s skin. This scale is based on an individual’s dermal reaction to ultraviolet exposure (Parrish, et al., 1974; Fitzpatrick, 1975; Pathak, et al., 1976; Fitzpatrick, 1988). It was assumed in science as well as popular culture that individuals with darker skin were less susceptible to issues related to UV damage of their skin. More recent research (Eilers, et al., 2013) suggests that while melanin affords some skin protection, damage can still occur that may result …

Exploring And Expanding The One-Pixel Attack, Umairullah Khan, Walt Woods, Christof Teuscher

Student Research Symposium

In machine learning research, adversarial examples are normal inputs to a classifier that have been specifically perturbed to cause the model to misclassify the input. These perturbations rarely affect the human readability of an input, even though the model’s output is drastically different. Recent work has demonstrated that image-classifying deep neural networks (DNNs) can be reliably fooled with the modification of a single pixel in the input image, without knowledge of a DNN’s internal parameters. This “one-pixel attack” utilizes an iterative evolutionary optimizer known as differential evolution (DE) to find the most effective pixel to perturb, via the evaluation of …

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Associations Across Multiple Saltmarsh Plant Species Mitigating The Impacts Of Sea-Level Rise, Rayna Koberstein, Catherine E. De Rivera

Student Research Symposium

Sea level rise caused by climate change will detrimentally impact saltmarsh habitats by increasing the elevation and rate of terrestrial salt water inundation, thereby reducing effective functionality of ecosystem services provided by saltmarshes. Facilitation is key to community structuring and function in habitats characterized by abiotic stress, such as salt marshes. Halophytic plants within salt marshes can benefit from symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) facilitations through increased inundation tolerance, greater nutrient availability and uptake, alleviation from drought stress and relief from saline stress.

Through this research, land managers developing sea-level rise mitigation plans will have data supporting which plants will …

Explanation Methods For Neural Networks, Jack H. Chen, Christof Teuscher

Student Research Symposium

Neural Networks (NNs) have become a basis of almost all state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms and classifiers. While NNs have been shown to generalize well to real-world examples, researchers have struggled to show why they work on an intuitive level. We designed several methods to explain the decisions of two state-of-the-art NN classifiers, ResNet and an All-CNN, in the context of the Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JSRT) lung nodule dataset and the CIFAR-10 image dataset. Leading explanation methods LIME and Grad-CAM generate variations of heat maps which represent the regions of the input determined salient by the NN. We analyze …

An Assessment Of The Decision Making Units’ Efficiency In Service Systems (The Case Of Cellular Telecom), Maoloud Dabab, Timothy R. Anderson

Student Research Symposium

Most tools and models on performance and quality of service management are generic and do not solve the complex technical systems, which the most critical component on the network and where these tools should be applied. The objective of this research is to assess the cellular performance and Base Transceiver Station (BTS) efficiency by proposing a robust model that is derived from multiple Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on technical and financial aspects. The novelty of this research provides a comprehensive multidimensional model for tuning the BTS parameters, which can lead to developing a standard global mobile network KPI. The …

Cluster Chondrite Accretion Temperatures Determined With Electron Backscatter Diffraction, Secana Goudy, Alexander Ruzicka

Student Research Symposium

We studied ordinary chondrites with cluster chondrite lithologies using electron backscatter diffraction to measure the temperatures of their olivine grains during deformation. Samples analyzed with the technique are shock classified as S1 and are type 3, so the deformation analyzed is inferred to represent the temperatures of the chondrules during accretional deformation. It was found that the studied samples are of a mixture of chondrules at mostly hot temperatures (>850°C) and some at cold.

Are We Providing The Preferred Floral Resources For Bees In Our Neighborhoods? Relationships Between Small Scale Vegetation Metrics And Pollinator Visitation In Se Portland, Hailey Wallace, Marion Dresner

Student Research Symposium

Due to the threat of losing our pollinators, there are many conservation actions such as "pollinator friendly" areas being constructed in cities around the globe, because of this there is a need for a greater understanding of the relationship between bees, and floral resources at a local landscape level. I assessed the relationship between blossom density, inflorescence type, cover, frequency, density and numbers of bees observed at three different "pollinator friendly" areas in South East Portland. This project utilized community science members to gather observational monitoring data at Johnson Creek Commons Rain Garden, SE Yukon Bioswales and Beyer Court Rain …

Effects Of Wavelength Variation On Localized Photoemission In Triangular Gold Antennas, Christopher M. Scheffler, Robert Campbell Word, Rolf Könenkamp

Student Research Symposium

Exposing metal-dielectric structures to light can result in surface plasmon excitation and propagation along the transition interface, creating a surface plasmon polariton (SPP) response. Photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) has been used to image nanometer scale plasmonic responses in micron-sized plasmonic devices. With PEEM, optical responses can be characterized in detail, aiding in the development of new types of plasmonic structures and their applications. In thin, triangular gold platelets SPPs can be excited and concentrated within specific regions of the material. In this regard, the platelets act as receiver antennas by converting the incident light into localized excitations in specific regions …

Forest Grove School District: Enrollment Forecast 2019-20 To 2028-29: Based On October 2018 Enrollments, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Charles Rynerson, Joshua Ollinger

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

This report presents forecasts of district‐wide and individual school enrollments for the Forest Grove School District (FGSD) for the 10 year period between 2019‐20 and 2028‐29. Three districtwide forecast scenarios correspond to population forecasts incorporating different assumptions about growth within the District, with the primary differences being the contribution of net migration to the District’s population and age distribution. Individual school forecasts consistent with the middle series are also presented for the 10 year period.