Digital Commons Network^™

Fast-Tracking Transit: Unveiling Portland's First Bus Rapid Transit Line And Signal Optimization Strategies, Mark Haines, Jesse Stemmler

PSU Transportation Seminars

This presentation on the Division Transit Project will provide an overview of the project elements including roadway design, bus station design, traffic signal timing and operations and the Next Gen Transit Signal Priority (TSP) system. We will discuss some lessons learned and provide before and after results from the project.

Investigating The Learning Goals And Expectations Of Laboratory Coordinators, Graduate Teaching Assistants, And Students In General And Organic Chemistry Laboratory Courses, Elizabeth Blanche Vaughan, A. Montoya-Cowan, Christine Kim, Alexandra Stephens, Osie Hamilton, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

As chemistry education researchers and practitioners continue to investigate and improve undergraduate laboratory courses, it is necessary to consider the perspectives held by each of the stakeholders who are directly involved in these courses, including laboratory coordinators, graduate teaching assistants, and students. This study sought to qualitatively investigate the learning goals and expectations held by laboratory coordinators, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and students for general and organic chemistry laboratory courses at a single institution. This was completed through the collection and analysis of semistructured interview data from laboratory coordinators and GTAs and open-ended written responses from students. Results indicated that …

Foreign Funding Of U.S. Higher Education Relates To Sanctioning Of Scholars And Antisemitism, Michael Bass, Alexander Reid Ross, Ben Wolfson, Joel Finkelstein, Sonia Yanovsky, Danit Finkelstein, Sean T. Stevens, Nathan Honeycutt, Pamela Paresky, Ayal Feinberg, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

We examined relations between foreign funding of U.S. colleges and universities and campus political developments. Seven studies investigated associations between foreign funding and campus liberal democratic norms, specifically, deterioration of free speech and academic freedom, and presence of antisemitism. Study I found that 349 colleges and universities received a total of almost $18 billion from foreign sources between 2014 and 2019. Study II examined relationships of foreign funding to campus deplatforming of speakers and punitive actions for speech protected by academic freedom. Main results were: 1. overall foreign funding was not strongly related to campus speech outcomes; 2. higher levels …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet November 2024, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The November 4, 2024 monthly packet includes the November agenda, appendices, and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held November 4, 2024.

A 3d Memristor Architecture For In-Memory Computing Demonstrated With Sha3, Muayad J. Aljafar, Rasika Joshi, John M. Acken

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Security is a growing problem that needs hardware support. Memristors provide an alternative technology for hardware-supported security implementation. This paper presents a specific technique that utilizes the benefits of hybrid CMOS-memristors technology demonstrated with SHA3 over implementations that use only memristor technology. In the proposed technique, SHA3 is implemented in a set of perpendicular crossbar arrays structured to facilitate logic implementation and circular bit rotation (Rho operation), which is perhaps the most complex operation in SHA3 when carried out in memristor arrays. The Rho operation itself is implemented with CMOS multiplexers (MUXs). The proposed accelerator is standby power-free and circumvents …

The Universal And The Unique, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the abstract dyad of universality and uniqueness. It notes that the two might be complementary and even synergistic, or that they might be alternatives that oppose one another. It also explores how the unique might be an emergent from a primal universality, as well as how the universal might be an emergent from a primal uniqueness. Finally, it offers an interpretation of this dyad in which the universal and the unique are equivalent transforms of one another and thus two sides of the same coin.

Keywords: Universality, uniqueness, general and particular, similarity and difference, fundamental dyad, dualism

Nfts At The Nexus Of Innovation And Sustainability: A Framework Aligning Nft Affordances With The Sustainable Development Goals, Kristi Yuthas

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are goals associated with the most significant global issues, which include climate, health, security, and poverty. The goals are part of an agenda for making progress on environmental, social, and economic issues while ensuring peace and leaving no one behind. Meeting these goals requires effort and innovation on all fronts, including technology. Information and communication technologies have long contributed to these efforts, and more recently, blockchain for good projects have begun to bear fruit. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are, in essence, certificates of ownership stored on a blockchain, can also contribute to sustainable …

A Finite-Horizon Approach To Active Level Set Estimation, Phillip Kearns, Bruno Jedynak, John Lipor

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We consider the problem of active learning for level set estimation (LSE), where the goal is to localize all regions where a function of interest lies above/below a given threshold as quickly as possible. We present a finitehorizon search procedure to perform LSE in one dimension while optimally balancing both the final estimation error and the distance traveled during active learning for a fixed number of samples. A tuning parameter is used to trade off between the estimation accuracy and distance traveled. We show that the resulting optimization problem can be solved in closed form and that the resulting policy …

Techniques For Modeling Ocean Soundscapes: Detailed Description For Wind Contributionsa, Martin Siderius, Michael A. Ainslie, John Gebbie, Alexandra Schäfke, N Ross Chapman, Bruce Martin, Kay L. Gemba

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wind over the ocean creates breaking waves that generate air-filled bubbles, which radiate underwater sound. This wind-generated sound is a significant component of the ocean soundscape, and models are essential for understanding and predicting its impact. Models for predicting sound pressure level (SPL) from wind have been studied for many years. However, the terminology and definitions behind modeling approaches have not been unified, and ambiguity has led to differences in predicted SPL. The 2022 Ambient Sound Modeling Workshop was organized to compare ambient sound modeling approaches from different researchers. The main goal of the workshop was to quantify differences in …

How Management Disclosure And Auditor Disclosure Affect Auditor Liability: The Case Of The Going Concern Financial Accounting Standard, Joel Owens, K. Kelli Saunders, Samantha Schachner, Todd A. Thornock

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

A current FASB standard requires management to assess the ability of the entity to continue as a going concern (GC) and disclose any substantial doubt about such. Using contextualized experiments wherein the auditor does not issue a GC opinion for an entity that subsequently fails, we study the effects of management disclosure, increased management disclosure responsibility, and auditor disclosure on auditor blame, a proxy for auditor liability. Consistent with predictions based on the Culpable Control Model, we find (1) management disclosure of substantial doubt increases auditor liability; (2) when management has not disclosed substantial doubt, auditor liability is greater under …

Let Knowledge Serve The City! A Decade Of Better Block Psu Projects, Ryan Hashagen

PSU Transportation Seminars

Better Block PSU works with Planning and Civil Engineering students to bring community ideas to life! Over the last 10 years, the pathway has resulted in many real world pop ups and capital projects implemented by volunteers and PBOT.

Editorial: Advances In Ecological Environment Changes In Coastal And Estuarine Waters In Response To Hydrodynamic Variability, Jiayi Pan, Yeqiang Shu, Zhe-Wen Zheng, Adam T. Devlin, Majid Nazeer, Andrew M. Fischer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the past few decades, coastal and estuarine ecological environments have undergone significant and rapid transformations, driven by a range of factors, with the variability in hydrodynamic conditions being one of the most prominent (Elliott et al., 2019; Statham, 2012; Da et al., 2024). These dynamic forces influence water movement, sediment transport, and nutrient cycling, all of which are critical components affecting the health and stability of these ecosystems (van Vliet et al., 2023; Li et al., 2023). Consequently, understanding and interpreting hydrodynamic processes in coastal and estuarine waters are fundamental to unraveling the mechanisms behind ecological changes. This task …

The Crime Of Luring A Minor For Contact Sexual Abuse: Exploration Of Demographic Patterns & Criminal Records Of Convicted Offenders., Bridget Diamond-Welch, Anna E. Kosloski, Christopher P. Carey, Molly Mcdade

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a significant public health problem, with a small but important subset of crimes committed by strangers, often facilitated through luring. Understanding the characteristics of individuals who engage in luring is essential for developing effective prevention and intervention strategies.

Objective

This study aimed to analyze the demographic characteristics and criminal histories of individuals convicted of luring a minor and to examine the types of crimes committed before and after conviction.

Participants and setting

The study included all individuals (N = 115) convicted of “luring a minor” between 2011 and 2021 in one county in …

Investigating Students' Expectations And Engagement In General And Organic Chemistry Laboratory Courses, Elizabeth B. Vaughan, Saraswathi Tummuru, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Students’ expectations for their laboratory coursework are theorized to have an impact on their learning experiences and behaviors, such as engagement. Before students’ expectations and engagement can be explored in different types of undergraduate chemistry laboratory courses, appropriate measures of these constructs must be identified, and evidence of validity and reliability for the data collected with these instruments must be investigated. This study collected evidence related to response process validity, internal structure validity, and single administration reliability for version 2 of the Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLIv2) and a measure of student engagement in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. …

Characteristics Of Interventions That Address Racism In The United States And Opportunities To Integrate Equity Principles: A Scoping Review, Brooke Dipetrillo, Paris B. Adkins-Jackson, Ruqaiijah Yearby, Crystal Dixon, Terri D. Pigott, Ryan J. Petteway, Ana Laboy, Aliza Petiwala, Margaret Leonard

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background:

As a driver of racial and health inequities, racism is deeply ingrained in the interconnected systems that affect health and well-being. Currently, no common frame is employed across researchers, interventionists, and funders to design, implement, and evaluate comprehensive interventions to address racism. Consequently, there is a need to examine the characteristics of interventions implemented in the United States that address racism across social and structural determinants of health and socio-ecological levels. Additionally, we utilized a Health Equity Action Research (HEART) framework to assess how interventions integrate equity principles.

Methods:

This scoping review examined the characteristics of multi-level interventions that …

Bipolar Ionization Did Not Reduce Airborne Bacteria In A Lecture Hall, David A. Kormos, Nishit J. Shetty, Elliott T. Gall, Aaron J. Prussin, Amy Pruden, Linsey C. Marr

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ionization treatment of indoor air has attracted attention for its potential to inactivate airborne pathogens and reduce disease transmission, yet its real-world effectiveness remains unverified. We evaluated the impact of an in-duct, bipolar ionization system on airborne particles, including culturable bacteria, in a lecture hall. The ionizer was off with variable fan speed for 1 week, on with variable fan speed for a second week, and on with high and constant fan speed for a third week. We measured ion concentrations and aerosol particle concentrations, and we collected bioaerosol samples for analysis of 16S rRNA gene copies representing total bacteria …

Bike Buses: An Evaluation Of An Emerging Active Transportation To School Intervention, Evan Howington, John H. Macarthur, Nathan W. Mcneil

PSU Transportation Seminars

Bike Buses are a relatively new form of Active Transportation to School (ATS) that have gained popularity in Europe and the United States in recent years. Generally, a bike bus consists of one or more adult supervisors, often parents, who guide a group of students along a defined ‘route’ to one or more schools. Using literature from the last 15 years published on ATS in North America, we identify four thematic areas of influence on Bike Buses: school policies, parent and student attitudes and behaviors, the urban environment, and the street environment. We conclude that Bike Buses can be situated …

An Exploration Of Self-Efficacy And Its Associated Factors Among Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients In Taiwan, I-Yu Hsiao, Hanoch Livneh, Wei-Jen Chen, Ming-Chi Lu, Tzung-Yi Tsai

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Self-efficacy is an important ingredient in successful disease management, especially in patients with chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, the information on self-efficacy and its influencing factors among RA patients is scarce. This study investigated the level of self-efficacy and its pertinent predictors among RA patients in Taiwan. This cross-sectional study recruited patients with RA from a hospital in Taiwan between January and October 2023. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on respondents’ demographic and job characteristics and included a Chinese version of the Arthritis Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES). Multiple linear stepwise regression analysis was employed to …

Readiness Of Cybersecurity In The Usa Energy Industry, Aaron Cavanaugh

Dissertations and Theses

Cybersecurity Readiness shows an organizations ability of applicant and application to be able to fully utilize computing resources through behaviors (e.g., training employees), practices, and processes, while managing risk through efficient controls in order to prevent, detect, and respond to outage scenarios using audit and assessment techniques. An evaluation of cybersecurity readiness for the USA energy industry assists industry decision makers to comprehensively assess readiness gaps for prioritizing a risk-based cybersecurity implementation plan. There is a currently a lack of a Multi-Criteria Decision Model (MCDM) to assist decision makers to comprehensively assess Readiness of Cybersecurity in the USA Energy Industry. …

Effects Of Spontaneous Curvature On Interfacial Adsorption And Collapse Of Phospholipid Monolayers, Bret A. Brandner, Shankar B. Rananavare, Stephen B. Hall

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

To function effectively, pulmonary surfactant must adsorb rapidly to the alveolar air/water interface but avoid collapse from the surface when compressed to high interfacial densities. Prior studies show that phospholipids in the cylindrical monolayers of the inverse hexagonal (HII) phase adsorb quickly. The monolayers have negative curvature, defined by the concave shape of the hydrophilic face. Formation of the HII structures, however, involves significant disruption of chain-packing. Samples with significant spontaneous curvature, formed in the absence of applied force, may nonetheless have lamellar structures that optimize chain-packing. The experiments here tested whether planar lamellar bilayers formed by phospholipids with negative …

Graph Regularized Sparse L2,1 Semi-Nonnegative Matrix Factorization For Data Reduction, Anthony Rhodes, Bin Jiang, Jenny Jiang

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) is an effective algorithm for multivariate data analysis, including applications to feature selection, pattern recognition, and computer vision. Its variant, Semi-Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (SNF), extends the ability of NMF to render parts-based data representations to include mixed-sign data. Graph Regularized SNF builds upon this paradigm by adding a graph regularization term to preserve the local geometrical structure of the data space. Despite their successes, SNF-related algorithms to date still suffer from instability caused by the Frobenius norm due to the effects of outliers and noise. In this paper, we present a new L2,1 SNF algorithm that …

Exploring Determinants Of Transit Recovery After The Covid-19 Pandemic, Udit Khandelwal

Dissertations and Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted public transit systems across the US, resulting in substantial declines in ridership and revenue. At the same time, ridership has increased to different levels in cities. This thesis explores the determinants of transit recovery in American cities post-pandemic. It analyzes data from the National Transit Database (NTD) and employs a two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression model first laid out by Taylor et al. (2008) for data from 2000. Similar to the results of that paper, the thesis finds strong correlation between transit ridership and variables for transit supply and urban and demographic characteristics for 2019 …

Dcai: The 4th International Workshop On Data-Centric Ai, Yanjie Fu, Kunpeng Liu, Dongjie Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Machine learning traditionally emphasizes developing models for given datasets, but real-world data is often messy, making model improvement insufficient for enhancing performance. Data-Centric AI (DCAI) is an emerging field that systematically improves datasets, leading to significant practical ML advancements. While experienced data scientists have manually refined datasets through trial-and-error and intuition, DCAI approaches data enhancement as a systematic engineering discipline. DCAI represents a shift from focusing on models to the underlying data used for training and evaluation. Despite the dominance of common model architectures and predictable scaling rules, building and using datasets remain labor-intensive and costly, lacking infrastructure and best …

Ghg Inventory From Building Washington State Department Of Transportation Roadways, Milad Ashtiani

PSU Transportation Seminars

State departments of transportation (DOTs) are increasingly focusing on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially with new regulations like the Buy Clean Acts in California, Oregon, and Washington. This project, in collaboration with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), aims to assess the agency's carbon emissions through a life cycle assessment of construction materials such as cement, concrete, steel, and asphalt, which are now under heightened scrutiny.

While WSDOT has already implemented strategies to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions (related to direct and energy-related activities), there has been limited focus on Scope 3 emissions—those generated upstream in …

Political Context And State-Level Health Behavior Disparities, Jane S. Vanheuvelen, Yi Wang, Tom Vanheuvelen

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Geographical residence predicts health and well-being. Population health, life expectancy, and mortality are partially the outcome of the characteristics of one’s social policy context. Yet how do such links occur? We extend focus from health outcomes to health behaviors and from a policy context to a broader political context. Using 20 waves of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System between 1993 and 2021 in combination with the Correlates of State Policy Project, we find that right-leaning political contexts—both policies and public attitudes—are predictive of riskier health behaviors. Counterfactual simulations show that these associations are …

Oregon State Rank Assessment For Warner Basin Tui Chub (Siphateles Bicolor Ssp. 15), Eleanor P. Gaines, Jesse Laney

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

Oregon state conservation status assessment for Warner Basin tui chub (Siphateles bicolor ssp. 15) using NatureServe methodology, 2024.

Cross-Track Seabed Imaging And Buried Object Detection With A Multibeam Sonar, Charles W. Holland, Samuel Pinson, Daniel L. Orange, Cody R. Henderson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

What lies underneath the ocean floor is of interest to a wide variety of disciplines. The focus here is imaging the upper tens of meters of material beneath the seafloor. The sub-bottom profiler is a valuable tool to that end, producing a 2-D image in depth below the seafloor and along the track of the ship. Geoscientists and engineers are frequently interested in not only the subseabed beneath the ship but also either side or cross-track of the ship. We show an approach to cross-track imaging using a low-frequency multibeam sub-bottom profiler. The main result is the detection of a …

The Impacts Of A Multimodal Safety Project On North Lombard Street In Portland, Oregon, Jason Anderson

PSU Transportation Seminars

North Lombard Street/US-30 Bypass is a critical corridor in North Portland, serving both commercial and residential interests. This corridor is also ranked 11th in terms of fatal and serious injury crashes in Portland. The Oregon Department of Transportation and the Portland Bureau of Transportation undertook a reconfiguration to improve multimodal safety and accessibility for all users. The reconfiguration happened between North Fiske Ave and North Boston Ave. Improvements included additional curb ramps that meet ADA standards, safer crosswalks with fewer lanes to cross, buffered bike lanes, new pavement and center turn lanes, traffic signals, and RRFBs and median refuge islands. …

The Carbon Crater: Comparing Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Emissions To Historical Planetary Events, Hal T. Nelson, Paul Reynolds, Brian W. Jewett

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Equilibrium climate sensitivity modeling relies heavily on paleoclimate records that were affected by meteorite impacts and volcanic explosions. This paper conducts a thought experiment by re-assembling known data and theories to shed new light on anthropogenic carbon waste. Anthropogenic activity, meteorite impacts and volcanic explosions all extract material from the Earth’s crust and deposit it in the atmosphere. This thought experiment tests if the mass of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from 1851 to 2021 is comparable to the mass of atmospheric emissions from historical planetary events. Approximately 3.60 trillion tons of anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalents are converted into volume and …

Planting The Seed: Using Research As A Tool To Revitalize Puberty Ceremonies In Anishinaabe Communities, Miigis B. Gonzalez, Alexandra Ziibiins Johnson, Lisa Awan Martin, Jillian Naawakwe, Jillian Fish, Lalaine Sevillano, Melissa L. Walls, Lee Obizaan Staples

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to honor the wisdoms of Anishinaabe Elders, community and culture by interweaving these teachings with my own (first author) Anishinaabe experiences and a research project. Ceremonies are an important health practice for Anishinaabe people. This project aimed to gain a clearer conceptualization of the protective role of Anishinaabe puberty ceremonies on health in adolescence and across the lifespan. Design/methodology/approach Spiritual offerings guided this project at every stage including inviting Elders and community members into shared spaces of storytelling and teaching elicitation and grounding me as I carefully adopted the use of a western …