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Urban Ecology & Conservation Symposium 2017: 15th Annual (Abstracts), Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium Of Portland/Vancouver

Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium of Portland/Vancouver

The UERC is a consortium of people from various universities and colleges, state and federal agencies, local governments, non-profit organizations and independent professionals interested in supporting urban ecosystem research and creating an information-sharing network of people that collect and use ecological data in the Portland/Vancouver area.

UERC Mission Statement:

To advance the state of the science of urban ecosystems and improve our understanding of them, with a focus on the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan region, by fostering communication and collaboration among researchers, managers and citizens at academic institutions, public agencies, local governments, non-profit organizations, and other interested groups.

The principal organizers span …

Risk Assessment In Criminal Justice, Kris R. Henning, Ryan M. Labrecque

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presentation focuses on risk assessment in criminal justice

Incorporating Sociocultural Phenomena Into Ecosystem-Service Valuation: The Importance Of Critical Pluralism, Carena J. Van Riper, Adam C. Landon, Sarah Kidd, Patrick Bitterman, Lee A. Fitzgerald, Elise F. Granek, Sonia Ibarra, David Iwaniec, Christopher Raymond, David Toledo

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ecosystem-services scholarship has largely focused on monetary valuation and the material contributions of ecosystems to human well-being. Increasingly, research is calling for a deeper understanding of how less tangible, nonmaterial values shape management and stakeholder decisions. We propose a framework that characterizes a suite of sociocultural phenomena rooted in key social science disciplines that are currently underrepresented in the ecosystem-services literature. The results from three example studies are presented to demonstrate how the tenets of this conceptual model can be applied in practice. We consider the findings from these studies in light of three priorities for future research: (1) complexities …

A Qualitative Examination Of Pain Centrality Among Veterans Of Iraq And Afghanistan Conflicts, Samantha D. Outcalt, Christina Nicolaidis, Matthew J. Bair, Laura J. Myers, Edward J. Miech, Marianne S. Matthias

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective. Centrality of pain refers to the degree to which a patient views chronic pain as integral to his or her life or identity. The purpose of this study was to gain a richer understanding of pain centrality from the perspective of patients who live with chronic pain.

Methods. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 26 Veterans with chronic and disabling musculoskeletal pain after completing a stepped care intervention within a randomized controlled trial. Qualitative data were analyzed using an immersion/crystallization approach. We evaluated the role centrality plays in Veterans’ lives and examined whether and how their narratives differ when centrality …

Measuring Stress Levels For Real-World On-Road Cyclists: Do Bicycle Facilities, Intersections And Traffic Levels Affect Cyclists' Stress?, Álvaro Caviedes

PSU Transportation Seminars

This research effort presents a novel approach to measure cyclists’ stress: real-world, on-road measurements of physiological stress as cyclists travel across different types of bicycle facilities in various traffic volumes. This study addresses the question of how the characteristics of a bicycle trip affect stress levels using physiological data, specifically GSR. As detailed in the next section, GSR-based studies have been successfully employed for many years in the psychological field to recognize and associate emotions and behaviors to physiological responses. The three research questions examined in this study are: i) Does peak traffic impact cyclists’ stress levels? ii) Do intersections …

Out In "The Numbers": Youth And Gang Violence Initiatives And Uneven Development In Portland's Periphery, Dirk Kinsey

Dissertations and Theses

Incidence of youth and gang violence in the Portland, Oregon metro area has increased dramatically over the past five years. This violence has recently become more spatially diffuse, shifting outwards from gentrified, inner city neighborhoods, towards the city's periphery. These incidents exist within the context of a shifting regional political economy, characterized by a process of gentrification associated displacement and growing, and distinctly racialized and spatialized, inequalities. While gang researchers have long argued a corollary between the emergence of gangs and economically and culturally polarized urban landscapes, the ongoing suburbanization of poverty in American cities suggests a new landscape of …

Advancing Design Thinking Towards A Better Understanding Of Self And Others: A Theoretical Framework On How Buddhism Can Offer Alternate Models For Design Thinking, Meredith James

Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design Faculty Publications and Presentations

In advancing the design discipline, two key themes repeatedly emerge: design's move away from materialism and augmenting better problem-solving skills through self-awareness. The first anchors design in a process rather than a product, something that is native to the concept of design thinking. The second anchors the designer in ethics. Designers who have a strong sense of self-awareness, understanding their own roles, biases and influences and the larger contexts they inhabit, are overall better equipped to solve problems. If we continue to advance design away from materialism and towards self-awareness, what models can we follow in this change?

Women In The Trades: An Interview With Connie Ashbrook And Nora Mullane, Liza Morehead

Metroscape

Liza Morehead interviews Connie Ashbrook and Nora Mullane.

Connie Ashbrook is the Executive Director and founder of Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., Previous to her years with OTI, she worked in the trades for seventeen years as a dump truck driver, carpenter apprentice, and elevator constructor. She was the first woman in Oregon to become licensed as an elevator mechanic.

Nora Mullane has been a union journey-person carpenter, general contractor, building inspector, and City of Portland Bureau of Developments Services supervisor. Nora says that successfully completing her carpenter’s apprenticeship program has served her well throughout her entire career, and life in general, …

Probation In The United States: A Historical And Modern Perspective, Ryan M. Labrecque

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Probation is a court order through which a criminal defendant is placed under the control, supervision, and care of a probation officer in lieu of imprisonment; so long as the probationer maintains certain standards of conduct. This chapter reviews the historical development of probation in the United States, and highlights how the practice is used in the 21st century. Probation has many advantages over imprisonment, including lower operational costs, increased opportunities for rehabilitation, and reduced risk of criminal socialization. However, there is increasing evidence to suggest probation strategies that focus on compliance monitoring and other law enforcement aspects of supervision …

Community Attitudes Regarding Public Safety In Portland’S Parkrose Neighborhood, Kris R. Henning, Jason Jones, Christian Peterson

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) has partnered with Portland State University (PSU) to develop new strategies for improving public safety and police-community relations. The initiative seeks to provide residents with greater voice in where police work in their neighborhood and what steps the police take to address public safety concerns. The current report presents the findings from a household survey conducted in Portland's Parkrose neighborhood. Residents' top concerns were social disorder, property crime, and alcohol/drug use. The majority of residents surveyed reported that overall safety in the neighborhood had declined over the past 12 months and a significant proportion (63%) …

Mandarin-English Bilinguals Process Lexical Tones In Newly Learned Words In Accordance With The Language Context, Carolyn Quam, Sarah C. Creel

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in a Mandarin context vs. an English context. Across three eye-tracked word-learning experiments, results indicated that tone-intonation bilinguals process tone in accordance with the language context. In Experiment 1, 51 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 26 English speakers without tone experience were taught Mandarin-compatible novel words with tones. Mandarin-English …

Curriculum Change 2017-2018, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Podcasts Episode 03: Dr. Gene Bourquin, Gene Bourquin, Amy T. Parker

O&M On the Go

In this interview, Dr. Bourquin considers the role that sound perception plays in orientation and mobility. Before becoming a certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist, Dr. Bourquin was an American Sign Language interpreter for Deaf and DeafBlind individuals. Listen as he describes his work with people who have combined vision and hearing loss, describing their use of additional senses, strategies and technologies to travel successfully.

Image credit: Bourquin Consulting Facebook

The Power Of Languages: Linguistic Discourse On Migration And Cultural Diversity, Eva Núñez-Méndez

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

En estos días que corren casi a diario vemos titulares en los periódicos y en los medios de comunicación sobre la situación de los refugiados de Siria tratando de cruzar Europa hacia Alemania, buscando seguridad y oportunidades. Muchos de ellos barajan la idea de que se trata de una fase temporal y de que van a volver a sus hogares cuando se termine la guerra civil. Otros optarán por quedarse en el nuevo país de acogida en el que aprender una segunda lengua será una tarea imprescindible para sobrevivir.

La migración no resulta un fenómeno nuevo en la historia de …

Do People’S Perceptions Of Neighborhood Bikeability Match “Reality”?, Liang Ma, Jennifer Dill

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Do people perceive the built environment the same as we objectively measure it? If not, what are the relative roles of the objective versus the perceived environment on bicycling behavior? This study, based on data from Portland, Oregon, explored the match or mismatch between the objective and perceived bicycling environment and how it affects people’s bicycling behavior. The descriptive analysis indicated a fair agreement between perceived and objective measures. Older adults, women having children, less-educated and lower-income persons, and those who bicycle less tended to perceive their high-bikeable environment (measured objectively) as being a low-bikeable environment. In addition to the …

The Contribution Of Sense Of Place To Social-Ecological Systems Research: A Review And Research Agenda, Vanessa A. Masterson, Richard C. Stedman, Johan Enqvist, Maria Tengö, Matteo Giusti, Darin Wahl, Uno Svedin

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

To develop and apply goals for future sustainability, we must consider what people care about and what motivates them to engage in solving sustainability issues. Sense of place theory and methods provide a rich source of insights that, like the socialecological systems perspective, assume an interconnected social and biophysical reality. However, these fields of research are only recently beginning to converge, and we see great potential for further engagement. Here, we present an approach and conceptual tools for how the sense of place perspective can contribute to social-ecological systems research. A brief review focuses on two areas where relation to …

Increasing Student Cognitive Engagement In The Math Classroom Through Sustained Professional Development, Eva Thanheiser, Brenda Rosencrans, Kathleen Mary Melhuish, Joshua B. Fagan, Layla Guyot

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We share the case of one teacher engaged in professional development (PD) designed to improve collective argumentation. We present an analysis of two lessons in her classroom, one before and one after her engagement with the professional development. Findings show that the classrooms differ across both teacher support for collective argumentation (requesting ideas and elaboration vs. requesting/acts and methods), and student contributions Oustifications vs. procedures and facts) .

“Metaphor Wars”: Time For A Truce?, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Are metaphorical words and phrases merely clever use (or abuse) of language, or do they tell us something important about human thought and communication? Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), initially proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980, claims that commonplace metaphorical expressions like “rising prices” and “a warm relationship” reflect deep conceptual relationships (e.g. MORE IS UP and AFFECTION IS TEMPERATURE) that shape almost all of human cognition. CMT is supported by the “embodiment hypothesis,” the proposal that ordinary language use and comprehension involves areas of the brain primarily concerned with perception and muscle control (e.g. Barsalou, 1998). These …

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2017-2018, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

Volume 1 - Programs is available via the Download option, Volume 2- Courses is available in the Additional Files below

From Climbing Walls To A Culture Of Caring, Kirk Kelly, Brenna Miaira Kutch

Office of Information Technology Publications and Presentations

Ultimately, creating a culture of caring will make the difference between paying employees to work for the organization and having them get up in the morning wanting to work for the organization. Staff will be more engaged, more committed, and more productive, will encourage others, and will live longer lives. Caring can't be faked. While this article has mentioned many ways to focus on a culture of caring, caring is not a list of boxes to check off. It is never "finished." Training people to genuinely care is difficult to do, so organizational leaders must keep this attribute in mind, …

The Compassion Of “Compassionate Migration”, John Shuford

Conflict Resolution Faculty Publications and Presentations

“Compassionate migration” carries social significance and implies moral criteria. This practical notion should provide means to review, envision, and develop laws, policies, and practices for how we engage noncitizens and build political community within wider human relations. Yet “compassion” is an elastic concept; competing discourses and practices reveal conflicting meanings, assumptions, and orientations. “Compassionate migration” needs criteria upon which its “compassion” is evaluated, including how this notion evolves and what practical results it inspires—such as social cohesion, immigrant integration, strengthened community, and societal transformation. Bookending the chapter’s conceptually driven discussion are two recent, and opposite, case studies in the American …

Transformative? Integrative? Troublesome? Undergraduate Student Reflections On Information Literacy Threshold Concepts, Rachel E. Scott

Communications in Information Literacy

In this exploratory study the authors ask students enrolled in a credit-bearing undergraduate research methods course to rank and evaluate the troublesome, transformative, and integrative nature of the six frames currently comprising the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The results indicate that students have valid insights into threshold concept-based instruction, but may confuse the application with the theory. If practitioners are to embrace not only the frames, but also the spirit of the Framework, we must directly involve students in our teaching and research practices.

The Reconquista Student: Critical Information Literacy, Civics, And Confronting Student Intolerance, Jonathan T. Cope

Communications in Information Literacy

Given the increasing power and prominence of political figures in the United States who openly espouse xenophobic, misogynistic, white nationalist positions it is only natural to anticipate encountering students who express these views in our libraries and classrooms. In this essay I use the methods of normative political theory to explore the following question: What are a set of consistent philosophical positions that Critical Information Literacy (CIL) could take that would allow it to respond to intolerance in a way that furthers its stated goals? CIL can draw upon the large body of literature on civic education in the United …

Setting Them Up For Success: Assessing A Pre-Research Assignment For First-Year International Students, Susan Avery

Communications in Information Literacy

As the international student population continues to grow, librarians must adjust their instruction to meet the needs of students who are adapting to a new country, culture, and language. This study assesses first-year international students as they engage in the research process through the completion of concept maps that precede database searches. Librarians assessed concept maps of international students completed prior to information literacy instruction to better understand the difficulties they experienced defining research topics and identifying keywords and alternatives. The results of this assessment provide a deeper understanding of the challenges first-year international students face with creating search strategies. …

"To Be Novelized": An Investigation Of Autofiction & How It Operates In Gwenaelle Aubry's No One, Ava Dean

University Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to identify and understand the neologism "autofiction" through literary theory and the employment of this genre in Gwenaelle Aubry's No One.

How Do Acts Of Terror Affect Public Discourse Concerning Immigration? A Media Analysis Surrounding The Pulse Nightclub Shooting, Braedon Lehman

University Honors Theses

This article aims to examine how terrorist attacks influence public discourse concerning immigration, both in bias and in overall amount of discussion by conducting a quantitative and qualitative content analysis study on the Pulse Nightclub shooting. I will ultimately try to contribute to the research question: how do acts of terror affect public discourse concerning immigration? I will draw from a wealth of other content analysis articles with particular reference to studies on the effect of differing terms for immigrants affecting public opinion such as Merolla, Karthick Ramakrishnan, and Haynes 2013. This study is split into two parts and specifically …

How Does The 12-Step Model Of Recovery Benefit And Complicate Harm Reduction Strategies For Substance Abusing Adolescent Youth?, Matthew Matteini

University Honors Theses

Alongside harm reduction strategies, the abstinence-based 12-step model of recovery has become an increasingly prominent means of addressing substance abuse among American adolescent youth. These two different models of recovery are commonly being implemented in tandem with one another as a means of treating substance abuse for adolescent youth. Despite the common occurrence of dual implementation, there has been limited research into the impact these modalities have upon one another. Using a narrative review, this study utilizes existing literature to highlight key means through which the 12-step model of recovery works as both an asset and a hindrance to harm …

Lacking Legitimacy: Neoliberal Governance And The Erosion Of Local Democracy In The United States And Argentina, Adriane Ackerman

University Honors Theses

An extension of capitalism’s relentless growth, neoliberal globalization has characterized most of the policies and practices that have proliferated between nation-states since the late 1970's, producing a "flatter" world in which spheres of influence, both economically and politically, have become inextricably interdependent. Some prominent results of this interdependence include consolidation of wealth, extreme socioeconomic stratification, greater influence of money upon politics, and deepening ideological divide within the populace. Increased sharing of the roles and responsibilities of governing with the private sector, along with increased access to information and exposure to systemic nepotism, have together undermined the sovereignty and preeminence of …

Implications Of Psychotherapy And Low-Dose Medication Following First-Episode Psychosis, Alyssa Woolley

University Honors Theses

Schizophrenia, a mental disorder characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thoughts and speech, is typically treated using antipsychotic medication and therapy. Randomized trials focusing on schizophrenia have provided evidence that early intervention, which entails talk therapy combined with low-dose antipsychotic medication directly following onset of psychosis, is most effective in treating symptoms. The literature review detailed in this paper is intended to help better understand the relationship between low-dosage antipsychotic medication, pair with regular psychotherapy, and how that relationship can help patients to adhere to treatment for long-term remission.

Relationship Between Social Anxiety & Facebook Surveillance, Jordan J. Rasmussen

University Honors Theses

The advent of social media has created a new type of information seeking to reduce uncertainty: extractive information seeking, which refers to when people seek information about their target by perusing their online social media profiles. The social compensation hypothesis suggests that those who suffer from social anxiety in face-to-face contexts might use a computer-mediated communication context (such as Facebook) to mitigate their face-to-face anxiety. The goal of this study is to find a relationship between general social anxiety (GSA) and interpersonal electronic surveillance (IES), a type of extractive information seeking. Results from this study indicate that while there is …