Digital Commons Network^™

A State Of Longing: Perspectives From Nagorno-Karabakh Idps, Isabelle Mcrae

University Honors Theses

Since the ceasefire in 1994, the intractable conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh continues to have a severe impact on security and development in the Caucasus region. Internally displaced Azerbaijanis (IDPs) from Nagorno-Karabakh are one of the main stakeholders in the conflict, and yet little study has addressed the impact of their symbolic values and identity issues vis-à-vis resolution efforts. Accordingly, this thesis focuses on four themes which arose in the author’s ethnographic research in Azerbaijan with internally displaced Azerbaijanis. The paper will address the group’s relation to the land, the framing of kinship and identity, relations with Armenia and the Armenian community, …

Development And Validation Of The Workplace Mental Illness Stigma Scale (W-Miss), Nicholas Anthony Smith

Dissertations and Theses

Although 1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness at some point, each year people with mental illnesses continue to face high levels of stigmatization and discrimination at work. Recognizing this, many organizational researchers and practitioners have sought to improve workplaces for employees with mental illness through a variety of organizational interventions. Unfortunately, few interventions are thoroughly evaluated. One barrier to evaluating such interventions is the lack of a theoretically meaningful measure of workplace mental illness stigma. In this dissertation, I proposed to develop and evaluate such a measure (the W-MISS) based on Jones, Farina, Hastorf, Markus, Miller, and …

Integrating Work Ability Into The Organizational Science Literature: Advancing Theory And Developing The Nomological Network, Grant Brady

Dissertations and Theses

As the workforce ages, enabling individuals to work effectively across the lifespan is critical for individuals, organizations, and societies. Put simply, societies and organizations are beginning to face a "new normal" in which people must continue working later in life. Investigations of work ability (WA), an individual's ability to meet the demands of their job, is a line of research that facilitates our understanding of the factors related to working successfully across the lifespan. Although research has established that WA is influenced by a range of organizational and personal factors and linked WA to retirement and disability, a number of …

Evaluating The Utility Of Theories Of Social Integration In Understanding Areal Suicide Rates In The United States, Nathan Finch Parsons

Dissertations and Theses

Despite over a century's worth of study, areal variations in suicide rate remain largely unexplained. In order to better understand these regional differences, this analysis aggregates county-level National Center for Health Statistics Multiple Cause of Death data with data from the US Census, the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, and the Penn State Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development to test the three leading conceptualizations of social integration (i.e. demographic, compositional, ecological) against US suicide rates. Results of negative binomial regression models indicate that an ecological measure, social capital, is substantially associated with suicide rate, while demographic and …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of High School Student Fine Arts Course Accumulation On Mathematics Course Achievement, Daniel Mackin Freeman

Dissertations and Theses

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational achievement is vital to economic competitiveness in the United States and abroad. Despite a concerted effort, the US lags well behind many similarly developed nations. Research suggests that the integration of fine arts education into traditional STEM curriculum (STEAM) boosts academic achievement in STEM subjects and closes gaps between low- and high-socioeconomic status students. Justifications for STEAM programs are based, however, on the unexamined assumption, for one, that fine arts courses instill creative and critical thinking skills that can be transferred to STEM subjects. The present study explores the impact of taking fine …

"It's All Because I Like The Person That's Teaching Me": Masculinities, Engagement, And Caring Relationships In Secondary Schools, Cristy Lauren Weggelaar

Dissertations and Theses

U.S. schools face a well-documented gender gap within some important educational and social indicators. In the United States, boys and young men are significantly more likely than girls and young women to be diagnosed with a learning disability, leave high school without a diploma, receive failing grades in core classes, and be suspended or expelled from school. This study uses an interpretive research framework to investigate the relationship between this gender gap in education and constructions of masculinity, social and cultural capital, agency, caring and resistance in secondary schools. Data collected through interviews with young men who engaged in acts …

Tree Canopy Cover And Potential In Portland, Or: A Spatial Analysis Of The Urban Forest And Capacity For Growth, Jeff Ramsey

Dissertations and Theses

Urban forests have positive impacts on human and ecosystem health, reduce stress on aging stormwater infrastructure, increase property values, and reduce energy consumption. The scale of these benefits ranges from the hyper-local to the global. While the benefits of urban forests can extend well beyond the boundaries of cities, they often do not reach all residents of the city equally. Urban forest policies do not adequately address environmental equity or employ planting strategies with knowledge of the social and political factors that determine the spatial variations of tree canopy extent in cities. Chapter I analyzes the determinants of current canopy …

The Ethical Challenges Of Community-Based Cs Training At Portland State, Joseph W. Christman

University Honors Theses

This literature review investigates Service Learning, the Capstone program at Portland State University, and the CS version of that Capstone program in particular in order to evaluate the ethical issues surrounding them. To achieve this, this paper is split into a few sections. There is an explanation of Service Learning, and a brief overview of its history. Following that is a summary of the history of the Capstone Program at Portland State including a description of the CS Capstone program at Portland State. After that the paper investigates some of the legal challenges surrounding the use of free labor. Next, …

Understanding The Consequences Of Newcomer Proactive Behaviors: The Moderating Contextual Role Of Servant Leadership, Talya N. Bauer, Serge Perrot, Robert C. Liden, Berrin Erdogan

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

Proactive newcomers are more successful in terms of integration and job satisfaction, than newcomers who are less proactive. However, it is unclear whether contextual factors, such as the leadership style experienced by newcomers, matter. To address this gap in the literature, we gathered data at three times from 247 new employees across their first six months after joining a company in France. Given that past research has found that newcomers play an active role in their own adjustment process, in the current study we investigate how newcomer proactive behaviors relate to the key outcomes of job satisfaction, person-job fit, and …

Women And Corrections: A Review Of Oregon Prisoners' Perspectives On Procedural Justice, Kelci J. Mueller

University Honors Theses

This paper examines the perceptions of women prisoners in Oregon on procedurally just treatment and their attitudes of legitimacy towards agents of the criminal justice system. It argues that women in an Oregon prison perceived unjust treatment from criminal justice officials which leads to feelings of illegitimacy. 142 women from minimum and medium security at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF) were surveyed about their interactions with police, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges. The research team analyzed survey responses to theoretically relevant questions such as when they were arrested, questioned by police, communicated with their defense attorney, plea bargain agreement, and …

Conference Introduction: Setting The Stage - June 2019, Allen Blackman

Forest Collaborative Research

Conference welcome, goals, agenda, and brief self-introductions.

Aligning Endangered Species Management With Fire-Dependent Ecosystem Restoration: Manager Perspectives On Red-Cockaded Woodpecker And Longleaf Pine Management Actions, Shelby A. Weiss, Eric L. Toman, R. Gregory Corace Iii

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Endangered species management has been criticized as emphasizing a single-species approach to conservation and, in some cases, diverting resources from broad-based, land management objectives important for overall biodiversity maintenance. Herein we examine perceptions on management for an endangered species whose habitat requirements largely depend on frequent fire, the red-cockaded woodpecker (Leuconotopicus borealis Vieillot). In doing so, we consider the alignment between species-specific population recovery actions and broader ecosystem restoration goals. Through semi-structured interviews with natural resource professionals (n = 32) in the Southeast Coastal Plain of the United States, we examined manager perspectives on the evolution of recovery …

A Computational Model For Recovery From Traumatic Brain Injury, Wayne Wakeland, Erin S. Kenzie

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

A computational simulation model calculates estimated recovery trajectories following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Prior publications include a multi-scale conceptual framework for studying concussion, a systems-level causal loop diagram (CLD) and an analysis of key feedback processes. A set of first order ordinary differential equations and their associated parameters determines recovery trajectories. The model contains 15 state variables, 73 auxiliary variables, and 50 parameters describing TBI pathology in an aggregate fashion at the cellular, network, cognitive and social levels. There are 1200 feedback loops, which give rise to a variety of behavior modes, many of which are highly nonlinear. Exogenous parameters …

Development Of The Aaspire Web Accessibility Guidelines For Autistic Web Users, Dora Raymaker, Steven K. Kapp, Katherine E. Mcdonald, Michael Weiner, Elesia Ashkenazy, Christina Nicolaidis

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Websites figure predominantly in everyday life. However, many websites remain inaccessible to autistic people, and existing efforts to improve accessibility are in early stages, do not directly include autistic users in their development, or have not been empirically evaluated. The Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) used a community-based participatory research approach to create a website to improve health care access for autistic adults. We used the creation of that website as a “living laboratory” to develop the AASPIRE Web Accessibility Guidelines for Autistic Web Users. Our guidelines are grounded in accessibility theory, had autistic end-user involvement …

Racial/Ethnic Differences In Multimorbidity Development And Chronic Disease Accumulation For Middle-Aged Adults, Ana R. Quiñones, Anda Botoseneanu, Sheila Markwardt, Corey L. Nagel, Jason T. Newsom, David A. Dorr, Heather G. Allore

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Multimorbidity–having two or more coexisting chronic conditions–is highly prevalent, costly, and disabling to older adults. Questions remain regarding chronic diseases accumulation over time and whether this differs by racial and ethnic background. Answering this knowledge gap, this study identifies differences in rates of chronic disease accumulation and multimorbidity development among non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic study participants starting in middle-age and followed up to 16 years.

We analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a biennial, ongoing, publicly- available, longitudinal nationally-representative study of middle-aged and older adults in the United States. We assessed the change in chronic …

Confronting Gentrification: Can Creative Interventions Help People Keep More Than Just Their Homes?, Amie Thurber, Janine Christiano

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Gentrification is changing the landscape of many American cities. As land values rise, people may lose their homes, neighbors, and sites of significance, along with their sense of place, community, and history. There is a critical need to build and preserve affordable housing, yet housing alone will not address the more than material losses. What role can the arts play in sustaining place attachments, restoring relationships, and building place knowledge in gentrifying neighborhoods? This paper explores this question through a systematic review of current research. We identify four prominent alternative interventions in gentrifying neighborhoods—creative placemaking, public pedagogy, community organizing, and …

Dementia-Related Neuropsychological Testing Considerations In Non-Hispanic White And Latino/Hispanic Populations, Shanna L. Burke, Mitra Naseh, Miriam Rodriguez, Aaron Burgess, David Loewenstein

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hispanic individuals are at greater risk for health disparities, less than optimal health care, and are diagnosed at later stages of cognitive impairment than white non-Hispanics. Acculturation and different attitudes toward test-taking may result in decrements in performance, especially on unfamiliar measures that emphasize speed and accuracy. Non-Hispanic individuals often outperform Hispanic individuals on cognitive and neuropsychological measures in community and clinical populations. Current neuropsychological testing may not provide accurate data related to monolingual and bilingual individuals of Hispanic descent. Testing instruments were identified by searching academic databases using combinations of relevant search terms. Neuropsychological instruments were included if they …

Integrating Multiple Narratives In Human Behavior Across The Lifespan Curriculum, Amethyst R. Dawson

University Honors Theses

Bachelors' of Social Work programs have attempted to highlight diversity and multiculturalism since the 1960's, when the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) required that social work, "must make special, continued efforts to enrich its program by providing racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity in its student body and at all levels of instruction and research personnel, and by providing corresponding educational supports." Despite this mandate, the actual application of diversity and multiculturalism in social work programs is marked by shortcomings.

To address this problem, some scholars have looked at the curriculum within social work programs, as well as different approaches …

The Improvement Of Machine Learning Accuracies Through Transfer Learning, Jordan T. Le

University Honors Theses

Pretrained models could be reused in a way that allows for improvement in training accuracy. Training a model from scratch takes time. The goal is improving accuracy and minimizing the loss across individual epochs. The hypothesis is that transfer learning could potentially improve on the rate of accuracy and speed of training per epoch iteration.

Life-Space Mobility And Aging In Place, Ivis Garcia Zambrana, Alan Kenneth Delatorre, Ja Young Kim, Julianne Reno, Keith Diaz Moore, Jordan Pieper, Jason Wheeler, Nicole Zinnanti, Brenda Jose

TREC Final Reports

Research on older adults explores the notion of “aging in place”—providing older adults the opportunity to continue to occupy familiar surroundings, to live in their own homes and communities. But oftentimes one’s ability to stay or leave, particularly in old age, depends on the built environment. Mobility is the ability to meet the basic needs to access goods, activities, services, and social interactions as they relate to quality of life. Thus, mobility is essential to older adults due to their limited, or gradually reducing, physical and cognitive abilities. In transportation research, mobility is often regarded in terms of travel behavior …

Development Of A Readiness Assessment Model For Evaluating Big Data Projects: Case Study Of Smart City In Oregon, Usa, Husam Ahmad Barham

Dissertations and Theses

The primary goal of this research is to help any organization, which is planning to transform to the big data analytics era, by providing a systematic and comprehensive model that this organization can use to better understand what factors influence big data projects. Also, the organization's current status against those factors. Finally, what enhancements are needed in the organization's current capabilities for optimal management of factors influencing an upcoming big data project. However, big data applications are vast and cover many sectors, and while most of the factors influencing big data projects are common across sectors, there are some factors …

Adolescent Executive Dysfunction And Distant Parental Relationships: Influences On Tobacco Use In Youth Under The Age Of 18, Aaron M. Eisen

University Honors Theses

Substance use such as tobacco is common during the adolescent stage of development. Cigarette use has been associated with a wide range of health complications and is listed as one of the most preventable causes of disease in the United States with 480,000 smoking-related deaths per year. Further research on the underlying factors that predict cigarette use could support the development of new evidence-based preventative treatment interventions.

The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between executive dysfunction measured by the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Functions (BRIEF-2), distant parental relationships including parental support, monitoring, decision influence, and …

Gentrification And Aging-In-Place: Examinations Of The Older African American Population In Portland, Or, Chanelle P. Parris

University Honors Theses

Older African Americans and Black adults are nearly twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and related dementias compared to their non-Hispanic White counterparts. The SHARP Program (Sharing Histories through Active Reminiscence and Photo-Imagery) aims at addressing this growing health disparity that exists between Black and White populations. The study's goal is to increase the physical and social activity of our participants in order to maintain and improve cognitive health through cultural relevancy. However, the current and on-going neighborhood change that occurs in the research area of interest presents complications to this group. This study worked to conceptualize the ways …

How Schools Encourage Incarceration: The School-To-Prison Pipeline And How It Fails Our Children, Madeline S. Buss

University Honors Theses

In the United States, mass incarceration is a way of life. In this literature review, the link between harsh policies in schools, punishment, and later odds of incarceration are explored- with a special interest on the disproportionate impact for students of color. Through literature reviews and analysis, I will examine the primary causes of the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP). The researchers examined spanned many disciplines (education, to criminology, to psychology) and methodological approaches, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method. The findings were near unanimous; policies in schools that sought to punish or enforce zero-tolerance were disproportionately punitive toward students of color, most …

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 …

Imprisoned Within The National Narrative: A Case Study Of The Modern Chinese Move Toward Pragmatic Nationalism, Madeline C. Michalk

University Honors Theses

This paper explains how the traumatic history narrative put forth through the Lüshun Russo-Japanese Prison Museum has proven itself useful to the Chinese Communist Party in creating a narrative that not only fosters a sense of loyalty to the state, but can also be used as a political ace card. After closely examining the Lüshun Russo-Japanese Prison Museum it has become evident that the Chinese push for pragmatic nationalism, which began in 1994 and continues to this day, coupled with a flamed fire against "Japanese aggression" are the most active ingredients in the museum as a "National Defense Education Demonstration …

The Image Of The Virgin In Gertrudis Gómez De Avellaneda's Sab (1841) And Carolina Coronado's Poesías (1843) As A Configuration Of Female Literary And Social Independence, Myrna C. Conroy

University Honors Theses

This research will consist of an analysis of the Romantic archetype of the virgin in the works Sab (1841) written by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and Poesías (1843) written by Carolina Coronado. These two works of literature will be used in order to assess the use of the virgin archetype as an expression of literary and social independence for women writers during 19^th-Century Spain and Cuba. This analysis will employ the use of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir for the author's construction of the "other" as a framework for the unique experiences that woman have faced …

Cycles Of Displacement: The Experience Of Immigrants And Refugees From East Africa In Northeast Portland, Julianna I. Robidoux

University Honors Theses

Cultural displacement is an effect of gentrification taking place in Northeast Portland, Oregon. The work of Hyra (2015) and Abrahamson (2005) is applied to the Eastern African enclave in Northeast Portland, which has worked to maintain attachments to their home countries and culture and recreate places of community they had in their homeland. I used qualitative research to collect data in the form of interviews with members of this enclave to highlight the negative consequences of displacement within a community. I also interviewed employees at housing organizations who work with immigrants and refugees, a documentary filmmaker who focuses on issues …

Medicaid Patients' Use Of Dental Benefits, Merit Roshdy

University Honors Theses

Oregon Health Plan patients experienced reduction to their dental coverage in 2003. This study explores Medicaid patients’ use of those dental services that are still offered to them and the effect of their use on self-assessment of their oral health. A phone survey was conducted in 2017 and collected a sample of 293 Medicaid patients in Oregon. Only two thirds of participants reported that they have a regular dentist. Participants were more likely to rate their overall health as Excellent/Good when also rating their gum health as Excellent/Good. Low English Proficiency (LEP) patients were NOT less likely to visit their …

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 …