Digital Commons Network^™

Validity, Reliability, And Utility Of The Oregon Assessment For 3-5 Year Olds In Developmentally Appropriate Classrooms, Steffen Saifer

Dissertations and Theses

An early childhood assessment tool was developed by the author to fill a need for an observational, authentic, child assessment instrument that would include the measurement of social and emotional development, help guide teachers towards best curriculum practices, and meet common criteria for effective, appropriate, and equitable assessment. Theoretical constructs of interactionalism, multiple intelligences, dispositions, and developmentally appropriate practices were used to inform the construction of the tool. In addition, the author hoped to develop a tool that would be effective for use as a Head Start program evaluation research instrument. Research methods involved a representative random sample of 200 …

Geometrical Modeling Of Material Aging, Alexander Chudnovsky, Serge Preston

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Material aging is understood as changes of material properties with time. The aging is usually observed as an improvement of some properties and a deterioration of others. For example an increase of rigidity and strength and reduction in toughness with time are commonly observed in engineering materials. In an attempt to model aging phenomena on a continuum (macroscopical) level one faces three major tasks. The first is to identify an adequate age parameter that represents, on a macroscopic scale, the micro and sub microscopical features, underlying the aging phenomena such as nucleation, growth and coalescence of microdefects, physico-chemical transformations etc. …

An Evolutionary Simulation Of The Tragedy Of The Commons, Gretchen Oosterhout

Dissertations and Theses

In his seminal essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968), Garrett Hardin argued that unless human population growth is controlled, the tragedy of common resource destruction is inevitable. This research consists of the development of an evolutionary computer model to simulate the Tragedy of the Commons, and social and economic solutions that have been proposed. In the simulations, multiattribute decision models are used to represent the tradeoffs a variety of types of individuals make among economic and social values in an uncertain environment. Individuals in each iteration of the simulation decide whether or not to exploit a common resource that …

An Empirical Study On The Jump-Diffusion Two-Beta Asset Pricing Model, Hongqing Chen

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation focuses on testing and exploring the usage of the jump-diffusion two-beta asset pricing model. Daily and monthly security returns from both NYSE and AMEX are employed to form various samples for the empirical study. The maximum likelihood estimation is employed to estimate parameters of the jump-diffusion processes. A thorough study on the existence of jump-diffusion processes is carried out with the likelihood ratio test. The probability of existence of the jump process is introduced as an indicator of "switching" between the diffusion process and the jump process. This new empirical method marks a contribution to future studies on …

Solutions Of Linear Equations And A Class Of Nonlinear Equations Using Recurrent Neural Networks, Karl Mathia

Dissertations and Theses

Artificial neural networks are computational paradigms which are inspired by biological neural networks (the human brain). Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are characterized by neuron connections which include feedback paths. This dissertation uses the dynamics of RNN architectures for solving linear and certain nonlinear equations. Neural network with linear dynamics (variants of the well-known Hopfield network) are used to solve systems of linear equations, where the network structure is adapted to match properties of the linear system in question. Nonlinear equations inturn are solved using the dynamics of nonlinear RNNs, which are based on feedforward multilayer perceptrons. Neural networks are well-suited …

A Policy-Independent Secure X Server, Kirk Joseph Bittler

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis demonstrates that a secure X system can be designed and implemented to be independent of a particular security policy. The advantages and costs of a separation of security policy and enforcement are examined by developing a large scale application, the DX windowing system, on a DTOS platform. DTOS is a high assurance operating system that isolates policy decisions in a Security Server. A security conscious process, such as DX, eliminates policy considerations from the code. The process instead consults the Security Server and enforces the decisions that server derives from the policy. The DX architecture is described and …

On Non-Holonomic Second-Order Connections With Applications To Continua With Microstructure, Marek Elźanowski, Serge Preston

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Motivated by the theory of uniform elastic structures we try to determine the conditions for the local flatness of locally integrable connections on non-holonomic frame bundles of order 2. Utilizing the results of Yuen as well as our results for the holonomic case, we show that the locally integrable non-holonomic 2-connection is locally flat if, and only if, its projection to the bundle of linear frames is symmetric and the so-called inhomogeneity tensor vanishes. In the last section of this short paper we show how these results can be interpreted in the framework of the theory of uniformity of simple …

A Comparative Study Of Perceptions Of Superintendents, High School Principals, And High School Department Chairs On The Role Of The High School Academic Department Chair: The Voice Of The Administrator, William Anthony Korach

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this exploratory descriptive study was to provide a first step in clarifying the role of the high school academic department chair as it is currently practiced in the state of Oregon. The study examined from the administrative perspective the potential for the continued development of the educational leadership role of the department chair as an administrative resource for instructional improvement. A researcher-constructed questionnaire was used to gather data from 27 Oregon school district superintendents, 34 high school principals, and 118 high school department chairs from English, math, science, and social studies departments in those same high schools.

The Development And Evaluation Of Aggregation Methods For Group Pairwise Comparison Judgments, Sida Zhou

Dissertations and Theses

The basic problem of decision making is to choose the best alternative from a set of competing alternatives that are evaluated under conflicting criteria. In general, the process is to evaluate decision elements by quantifying the subjective judgments. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) provides us with a comprehensive framework for solving such problems. As pointed out by Saaty, AHP "enables us to cope with the intuitive, the rational, and the irrational, all at the same time, when we make multicriteria and multiactor decisions". Furthermore, in most organizations decisions are made collectively, regardless of whether the organization is public or private. …

Determining The Factors Influential In The Validation Of Computer-Based Problem Solving Systems, Leslie Anne Morehead

Dissertations and Theses

Examination of the literature on methodologies for verifying and validating complex computer-based Problem Solving Systems led to a general hypothesis that there exist measurable features of systems that are correlated with the best testing methods for those systems. Three features (Technical Complexity, Human Involvement, and Observability) were selected as the basis of the current study. A survey of systems currently operating in over a dozen countries explored relationships between these system features, test methods, and the degree to which systems were considered valid. Analysis of the data revealed that certain system features and certain test methods are indeed related to …

Mechanisms Of Pentachlorophenol Induced Charge Transport In Lipid Membranes, William Charles Brown

Dissertations and Theses

Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is one of the prominent environmental pollutant that has penetrated into food chain and is present in humans. Health concerns have been raised since daily intake of PCP by the US population is estimated to be 16-19 µg. PCP facilitates dissipation of electrochemical potential gradients of hydrogen ions across energy transducing membranes, which are the energy sources for the conversion of adenosine diphosphate into adenosine triphosphate. Closely linked to these dissipative effects is the development of electrical conductivity in lipid membranes, induced by the presence of PCP. Three modes of PCP - induced membrane electrical conductivity were theoretically …

Value Measurement For New Product Category: A Conjoint Approach To Eliciting Value Structure, Roland Helmut Heger

Dissertations and Theses

Ability to measure value from the customer's point of view is central to the determination of market offerings: Customers will only buy the equivalent of perceived value, and companies can only offer benefits that cost less to provide than customers are willing to pay. Conjoint analysis is the most popular individual-level value measurement method to determine relative impact of product or service attributes on preferences and other dependent variables. This research focuses on how value measurement can be made more accurate and more reliable by measuring the relative influence of selected methodological variations on performance in prediction and on stability …

Simple Approximation For Thermal Diffusion In Ionized Gas Mixtures, John D. Ramshaw

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

A simple approximation for thermal diffusion in gas mixtures was recently proposed [1]. This approximation was based upon relations valid for rigid spheres. It is therefore appropriate for molecules with steep repulsive potentials, but not for ionized species interacting via the Coulomb potential. Here we formulate an analogous approximation for ionized species and free electrons. The resulting thermal diffusion coefficients differ in sign from those for hard molecules.

Friction-Weighted Self-Consistent Effective Binary Diffusion Approximation, John D. Ramshaw, C. H. Chang

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The self-consistent effective binary diffusion (SCEBD) approximation for multicomponent diffusion in gas mixtures is reconsidered and reformulated. The new formulation is based on the fact that a suitable rearrangement of the Stefan-Maxwell equations provides an exact expression for the complementary mean velocity a_i for species i as a weighted average of the velocities of all the other species. The coefficients in a_i are normalized friction coefficients which are simply related to the true binary diffusion coefficients. A simple factorized bilinear approximation to the friction coefficients then yields approximate species diffusion fluxes identical in form to those of a …

Captive Environmental Influences On Behavior In Zoo Drills And Mandrills (Mandrillus), A Threatened Genus Of Primate, Erik Terdal

Dissertations and Theses

Drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus) are an endangered species of African monkey (Cercopithecidae), and their sole congener the mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is vulnerable to extinction. Both species are threatened in the wild by deforestation and hunting.

Drills have a poor record of captive reproduction. Many individuals appear to have behavioral deficiencies which interfere with reproduction. Thus, the zoo population of drills does not serve as a “hedge” against the species’ total extinction: drills are endangered in captivity as well as in the wild. Mandrills, by contrast, reproduce well in captivity. Information on the behavior of mandrills in captivity may help zoo managers …

Where Have All The Ideophones Gone? The Death Of A Word Category In Zulu, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The first step in the discussion is to demonstrate that ideophones constitute a word class, a relatively uncontroversial claim for Southern Bantu. The second is to show that native speakers of Zulu do not share equal knowledge of ideophones and how this knowledge correlates with social factors. Measured knowledge of ideophones is evaluated against the social factors of age, sex, education, residence patterns, and rusticity, a parameter to be elaborated below. The conclusion is that just as for pidgins and creoles (Childs 1994) the knowledge and use of ideophones serves as a reliable barometer for language typing and language change, …

Leaner Environmental Policies For Agriculture, David E. Ervin, Elisabeth A. Graffy

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Farmers and ranchers face a most troubling dilemma. Complex political forces have mapped two quite different paths to environmental management-a rollback of federal regulations or a buildup of traditional subsidies. In the words of a famous modern philosopher, "When you reach a fork in the road, take it!" But either choice poses risk for the industry and will not likely ameliorate nettlesome environmental problems. A third path could help the industry maintain competitiveness and meet environmental challenges. This path uses me latest science to identify agroenvironmental problems and emphasizes economically attractive technology to sustain environmental improvements.

Global Optimization Studies On The 1-D Phase Problem, Martin Zwick, Byrne Elliot Lovell, Jim Marsh

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Simulated Annealing (SA), two techniques for global optimization, were applied to a reduced (simplified) form of the phase problem (RPP) in computational crystallography. Results were compared with those of "enhanced pair flipping" (EPF), a more elaborate problem-specific algorithm incorporating local and global searches. Not surprisingly, EPF did better than the GA or SA approaches, but the existence of GA and SA techniques more advanced than those used in this study suggest that these techniques still hold promise for phase problem applications. The RPP is, furthermore, an excellent test problem for such global optimization methods.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet January 1996, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The January 1996 Monthly packet includes the January agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held December 1995.

Final Environmental Impact Statement For The Bal'diyaka Interpretive Center At Gregory Point On The Oregon Coast In Coos County, Joseph A. Maser

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, in partnership with the Coos Bay District of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are proposing to construct and operate an interpretive center near or on the South Coast of Oregon, near Coos Bay. The Bal'diyaka Interpretive Center is envisioned to contain a 51,000 square foot main building, a recreated coastal Indian village, an ethnobotanical interpretive trail, vehicular circulation and parking, and utilities infrastructure.

This Environmental Impact Statement analyzes four alternatives for this proposed interpretive center. The proposed action of the BLM would locate the Bal'diyaka Interpretive Center on Gregory …

Generalized Beam Matrices. Ii. Mode Selection In Lasers And Periodic Misaligned Complex Optical Systems, Lee W. Casperson, Anthony A. Tovar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A generalized beam matrix method is used to investigate the mode structure of astigmatic misaligned optical systems with loss or gain. In these optical systems the usual real-argument polynomial-Gaussian beams are not eigenfunctions, and off-axis complex-argument polynomial beams must be used. New beam transformations for these complex-argument modes are reported. Stability criteria are developed, and mode selection in laser resonators that contain tilted, displaced, or curved complex optical elements is discussed.

An Ice-Shelf Model Test Based On The Ross Ice Shelf, D. R. Macayeal, V. Rommelaere, P. Huybrechts, Christina L. Hulbe, J. Determann, C. Ritz

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A standard numerical experiment featuring the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, is presented as a test package for the development and intercomparison of ice-shelf models. The emphasis of this package is solution of stress-equilibrium equations for an ice-shelf velocity consistent with present observations. As a demonstration, we compare five independently developed ice-shelf models based on finite-difference and finite-element methods. Our results suggest that there is little difference between finite-element and finite-difference methods in capturing the basic, large-scale flow features of the ice shelf. We additionally show that the fit between model and observed velocity depends strongly on the ice-shelf temperature field …

Embedded Particle Computation In Evolved Cellular Automata, Wim Hordijk, James P. Crutchfield, Melanie Mitchell

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In our work we are studying how genetic algorithms (GAs) can evolve cellular automata (CAs) to perform computations that require global coordination. The evolving cellular automata" framework is an idealized means for studying how evolution (natural or computational) can create systems that perform emergent computation, in which the actions of simple components with local information and communication give rise to coordinated global information processing [3].

In previous work [4, 5], we analyzed the process by which a genetic algorithm designed CAs to perform particular tasks. In this paper we focus on how these CAs implement the emergent computational strategies for …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet December 1995, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The December 1995 Monthly packet includes the December agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held November 1995.

Single Molecule Emission Characteristics In Near-Field Microscopy, Randy X. Bian, Robert C. Dunn, X. Sunney Xie, P.T. Leung

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

In near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), the measured fluorescence lifetime of a single dye molecule can be shortened or lengthened, sensitively dependent on the relative position between the molecule and aluminum coated fiber tip. The modified lifetimes and other emission characteristics are simulated by solving Maxwell equations with the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The 2D computation reveals insight into the lifetime behaviors and provides guidance for nonperturbative spectroscopic measurements with NSOM. This new methodology is capable of predicting molecular emission properties in front of a metal/dielectric interface of arbitrary geometry.

Adaptive Methods For Distributed Video Presentation, Crispin Cowan, Shanwei Cen, Jonathan Walpole, Carlton Pu

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper describes problems and solutions for delivering real-time, multi-media presentations across the Internet. A key characteristic of presentations of continuous media datatypes, such as digital video and audio, is their need for predictable real-time data delivery. For example, an NTSC quality video presentation requires video frames to be displayed every 1/30th of a second. Variations in this display rate can be observable as stalls or glitches in the video stream and reduce the quality of the presentation [6]. Delivering such presentations across the Internet is difficult because highly variable band- width and latency make it difficult to predict the …

Complexity Properties Of The Cellular Automaton Game Of Life, Andreas Rechtsteiner

Dissertations and Theses

The Game of Life is probably the most famous cellular automaton. Life shows all the characteristics of Wolfram's complex Class IV cellular automata: long-lived transients, static and propagating local structures, and the ability to support universal computation.

We examine in this thesis questions about the geometry and criticality of Life. We find that Life has two different regimes with different dimensionalities. In the small scale regime Life shows a fractal dimensionality with D_s = 0.658 and in the large scale regime D₁ = 2.0, suggesting that the objects of Life are randomly distributed. We find that Life …

Influence Of Heater Orientation On Fluctuations In Steady-State Nucleate Boiling, William F. Osborne

Dissertations and Theses

In observations of steady-state nucleate boiling, fluctuations in the temperature and heat flux might initially appear to be completely random. However, it was shown that, for a vertically mounted platinum wire in liquid nitrogen, the fluctuations about the steady-state exhibit an average counterclockwise circulation when the heat flux is plotted versus the superheat temperature. An area associated with the average circulation was proposed as a numerical measure of stability for steady-state nucleate boiling. The mechanisms for the generation of these fluctuations are thought to be the feedback of the bubbles rising past the wire and the differential heating and cooling …

Device And Physical Data Independence For Multimedia Presentations, Richard Staehli, Jonathan Walpole, David Maier

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Multimedia computing promises access to any type of visual or aural medium on the desktop. But in this networked future, will every type of media be accessible from every terminal device? Current multimedia standards do not allow content that is authored for high-bandwidth workstations to scale down for low-bandwidth applications. The problem is that application requests are commonly interpreted as requests for the highest possible quality and resource overloads are handled by ad hoc methods. We can begin to solve this problem by specifying Quality of Service (QOS) requirements based on functionality rather than on content encoding and device capabilities.

Customizable Operating Systems, Jonathan Walpole, Crispin Cowan, Andrew P. Black, Jon Inouye, Calton Pu, Shanwei Cen

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

A customizable operating system is one that can adapt to improve its functionality or performance. The need for customizable and application-specific operating systems has been recognized for many years, but they have yet to appear in the commercial market. This paper explores the notion of operating system customizability and examines the limits of existing approaches. The paper begins by surveying system structuring approaches for the safe and efficient execution of customizable operating systems. Then it discusses the burden that existing approaches impose on application software, and explores techniques for reducing this burden. Finally, support for customizability in the Synthetix project …