Digital Commons Network^™

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: Tom Potiowsky, state economist and Portland State professor, tells us not to worry; women are passing on political leadership know-how to a new generation; in moving his own life forward, Richard Pimentel improved the lives of disabled people everywhere; and more.

Representation Without Taxation : China's Rural Development Initiatives For A New Millenium, Minzi Su

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research is to assess the prospects for China's rural revitalization programs now in their initial stages of formulation and implementation. The study seeks to discover, primarily on the basis of field research in several different rural locations, what capacities and political-economic conditions seem to hold the greatest promise for success. The research was occasioned primarily by two key factors: First, China's party and government are now engaged in a massive program to create nothing less than a harmonious society, a key element of which is a "new socialist countryside." The second factor is that despite numerous …

Lost In Translation : Ideas Of Population Health Determinants In The American Policy Arena, Maria Gilson Sistrom

Dissertations and Theses

A growing body of research reveals the determinants of population health to be social, political and economic, yet health policy in the United States remains largely individualistic (Evans, Barer, & Marmor, 1994). At the same time research is revealing these structural determinants of health, measures of population health in the United States are worsening in comparison to other developed countries (Bezruchka, 2001). Explanations for this include the influence of culture, medical, public health and governmental institutions and historic development and processes on health policy. Researchers hold to a view of the policy process that is informed by science, yet policy …

Impacts Of Early Sexual Experience And Associated Risk Of Sexually Transmitted Infection (Sti) Among Teens And Adults In The United States, Ginny Garcia-Alexander

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This analysis explores incidence rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among minority group teenagers (aged 15-19) and adults aged 20-34 in the United States. The primary research question is aimed at whether or not the early onset of sexual activity is directly related to the incidence of STI transmission among Americans. Discussion is given to the current literature with respect to the most recent trends in STIs as well as some historical background on classifications. Also examined are the differing impacts observed for those who are affected by bacterial infections (young minorities) and those who are affected by viral infections …

Sociology Of Islam & Muslim Societies, Newsletter No. 1, Tugrul Keskin, Gary Wood

Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies Newsletter

Table of Contents:

• Welcome
• Dr. Kemal Silay’s at Virginia Tech
• Upcoming Conferences and Web Sites of Interest
• Forthcoming Edited Volume: Survey of Islamic Ideas and the Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies
• Subscriber Statistics

Organizational Complexity In American Local Governance: Deploying An Organizational Perspective In Concept And Analytic Framework Development, Charles David Crumpton

Dissertations and Theses

Organizational complexity is a distinguishing characteristic of local governance in America's urban areas. Organizationally complex arrangements among jurisdictions, agencies, and private for-profit and not-for-profit organizations are frequently involved in the production and delivery of local public goods and services in the United States. In this dissertation study the author seeks useful explanations regarding emergence, operation and consequences of organizational complexity found in local public economies in the United States. The study draws on the author's professional practice and researcher experience and organizational theory to develop a conceptual platform for better understanding local public sector organizational complexity. The conceptual platform is …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet March 2008, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The March 2008 Monthly packet includes the March agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held February 2008

The Illicit Arms Trade: A Social Network Analysis, David Todd Kinsella

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. Small arms are difficult to track and are not the stuff of military parades, but they are immensely destructive. In addition to what is already circulating, a substantial percentage of what is newly produced enters the black market and is destined for conflict zones across the globe. I argue that the illicit trade in small arms shares some important properties with networked forms of organization studied by sociologists. I then employ quantitative methods developed for the study of social networks in an …

"Railcars Loaded With Crisp Fresh Vegetables" A Study Of Agriculture At The Tule Lake Relocation Center 1942-1946, Michael David Schmidli

Dissertations and Theses

In the Spring and Summer of 1942, the population of West Coast Japanese were rounded up and forcibly moved from their homes to temporary camps and soon after to ten permanent relocation camps in the interior Western United States. This thesis traces the history of one such camp, the Tule Lake Relocation Center. In this thesis I argue that from its inception the Tule Lake Center was unique among the ten camps. The decision to build a permanent center at Tule Lake was based upon the unique potential the area provided for agriculture on a huge scale. The other permanent …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet February 2008, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The February 2008 Monthly packet includes the February agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held January 2008

An Integrative Approach To Quality Of Life Measurement, Research, And Policy, Robert Costanza, Brendan Fisher, Saleem H. Ali, Caroline C. Beer, Lynne A. Bond, Roelof Boumans, Nicholas Louis Danigelis, Jennifer Alvarez Dickinson, Carolyn M. Elliott, Joshua C. Farley, Diane Elliott Gayer, Linda Macdonald Glenn, Thomas Richard Hudspeth, Dennis F. Mahoney, Laurence E. Mccahill, Barbara Mcintosh, Brian V. Reed, S. Abu Rizvi, Donna Marie Rizzo, Thomas A. Simpatico, Robert Raymond Snapp

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

While Quality of Life (QOL) has long been an explicit or implicit policy goal, adequate definition and measurement have been elusive. Diverse "objective" and "subjective" indicators across a range of disciplines and scales, and recent work on subjective well-being (SWB) surveys and the psychology of happiness have spurred renewed interest. Drawing from multiple disciplines, we present an integrative definition of QOL that combines measures of human needs with subjective well-being or happiness. QOL is proposed as a multiscale, multi-dimensional concept that contains interacting objective and subjective elements. We relate QOL to the opportunities that are provided to meet human needs …

Teacher Perceptions Of The Funding Crisis In Oregon Public Schools: Policy Issues, Leonora M. Cohen, Jennfer Dixon, Gregory Sampson-Gruener, Donna Shaw

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

During spring f 003 Oregon endured the worst school budget crisis in the nation. To understand teacher experiences during this period, 90 teachers across the state were interviewed. Questions focused on teacher attitudes, personal/financial issues, working conditions, and changes in teaching, analyzed with simple statistics and qualitative descriptive methods. Teacher satisfaction declined; teachers were pessimistic about schools, angry about salary freezes, and wanted to retire immediately. Most expressed frustration with politics and dissatisfaction with working conditions. Almost all experienced salary loss, even when days were not cut. Teachers made many personal sacrifices and most experienced health problems. Working condition changes …

Major Arteries And Motor Vehicle Theft: Investigating The Spatial Distribution Of Mvt In The Lower Mainland District, Kathryn Wuschke

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Vehicle theft, like most crime types, is spatially concentrated, with more than one quarter of these crimes occurring within fifty meters of a major roadway. Spatial analysis and mapping of all motor vehicle thefts (MVT) occurring in the PIRS system for the Lower Mainland District in 2004 and 2005 emphasize clear clustering around major roads. This map also reveals hotspots of MVT intensity occurring in specific point locations across the landscape. Future fact sheets will analyze these activity nodes to determine the specific land uses around which MVT events tend to cluster.

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2008-2009, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Measuring Community-Engaged Departments: A Study To Develop An Effective Self-Assessment Rubric For The Institutionalization Of Community Engagement In Academic Departments, Kevin Kecskes

Dissertations and Theses

Change in American higher education is occurring at a rapid pace. The increasing reemergence of civic or community engagement as a key component in the overall landscape of American higher is emblematic of that change. Academic departments play a critical role in higher education change, including institutionalizing community engagement on campuses. Yet, designing a way of measuring community engagement specifically at the level of the academic department has not been undertaken.

Based on advice from national expert/key informant interviews and the recognition of the importance of the role of academic departments in the overall institutionalization of community engagement in higher …

Book Review Of, Caitrin Lynch. Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender And Cultural Politics In Sri Lanka’S Global Garment Industry, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book "Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry," by Caitrin Lynch

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: Wim Wiewel takes the helm at Portland State University; faculty research is going from ideas to something the public can use; Dark Horse Comics’ full collection is on the shelves in the PSU Library; and more.

An Anatomy Of A Community-University Partnership: The Structure Of Community Collaboration, W. Barry Messer, Kevin Kecskes

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University for the past twelve years has been engaged in a transformation of its general education program and a renewal of its urban mission. A major thrust of this reform has focused on broadening the involvement of students and faculty in community-based learning and scholarship. Curricular and administrative changes have significantly raised the presence of the university in the community and resulted in numerous academic units actively engaging in community collaboration. The collaboration has proven to be an important platform by which the university has expanded its boundaries into the community through actions involving many challenges to the …

What Do Bras Have To Do With Puberty? Educating Boys About Girls Bodies, Jamie P. Ross

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teaching puberty to 10-11 year olds and teaching sexuality to 13-18 year olds should be fun. Yet fun is not ordinarily associated with teaching puberty and sex in polite secular American society, let within religious arenas. It may not be polite and there are parental fears that formal sex education has a causal relationship with promiscuity. Yet, when I have asked over the years in my Sexualities class, in my most informal of polls, whether parents have taken a large and/or productive role in teaching sex to their children, the percentages are always very small. Many parents do not know …

Web 2.0, Synthetic Immersive Environments, And Mobile Resources For Language Education, Julie M. Sykes, Ana Oskoz, Steven L. Thorne

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

In light of the increasingly blurred line between mediated and nonmediated contexts for social, professional, and educational purposes, attention to the presence and use of innovative digital media is critical to the consideration of the future of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). This article reviews current trends in the use of mediated communication and offers a vision for near-future second and foreign language (L2) learning that utilizes emerging media as (a) meaningful contexts for L2 language development and (b) a means for adding real world relevance to in-class uses of internet-mediated communication tools. In this article, we first explore a sampling …

Research Summary: Courageous, Collaborative Leadership, Vincent A. Anfara Jr., P. Elizabeth Pate, Micki M. Caskey, P. Gayle Andrews, Larry G. Daniel, Steven B. Mertens, Mike Muir

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

While courageous, collaborative leadership has not been formally recognized as a “model” by those who study educational leadership, there is a wealth of information about collaborative (i.e., participatory) leadership and a growing corpus of literature focused on courageous leadership. As in the development of the ideas connected to collaborative leadership, the world of business is taking the lead in delineating what courageous leadership means. Some of this literature has even surfaced in the realm of religious studies (Hybels, 2002). Simply defined, courageousness in leadership addresses the necessity to step outside the box and take chances to help the organization establish …

Staying Within The Margins: The Educational Stories Of First-Generation, Low-Income College Students, Diane Lyn Cole

Dissertations and Theses

his research addressed educational persistence among first-generation, low-income college students. The educational paths of 22 first-generation, low-income undergraduate students attending a large, urban university in the Northwest region of the United States were examined through a narrative framework. Half of the participants had persisted from year one to year two, and the other half left the university after their first year. Analytic procedures consisted of thematic qualitative coding, an analysis of student trajectories over educational histories, and the reconstruction of narrative stories. Data were used to examine: (1) How first-generation, low-income students understood and described their journey through their first …

Patterns Of Aspect-Oriented Design, Black P. Andrew, James Noble, David J. Pearce, Arno Scmidmeir

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Aspect-oriented programming languages are becoming commonplace, and programmers are accumulating experience in building and maintaining aspect-oriented systems. This paper addresses how the use of these languages affects program design: how aspect-oriented languages change the design space, which designs should be emulated and which avoided, and the strengths and weaknesses of particular kinds of design. We identify five patterns of aspect-oriented design: Spectator, Regulator, Patch, Extension, and Heterarchical Design. For each pattern, we describe the problem it solves, show how aspect-oriented language features are used in the pattern, give characteristic examples of the pattern’s use, and assess its benefits and liabilities. …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet December 2007, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The December 2007 Monthly packet includes the December agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held November 2007

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet November 2007, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The November 2007 Monthly packet includes the November agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held October 2007

Islamophobia And The U.S. Media, Michelle Maria Nichole Diamond

Dissertations and Theses

The following paper examines the growing fear and discrimination currently projected towards Islam and Muslims in the United States. This thesis will specifically focus on what role the U.S. mainstream media has played in either increasing or decreasing Islamophobia amongst the American public post September 11, 2001. The research collected to conduct this study came from theories of political science, conflict resolution, international affairs, psychology, sociology, and personal interviews. I conclude that Islamophobia has increased in the United States since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and that Islamophobia, due to the mainstream media, is more pervasive in the U.S. …

Loop Analysis Of Causal Feedback In Epidemiology: An Illustration Relating To Urban Neighborhoods And Resident Depressive Experiences, Alexis Dinno

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

The causal feedback implied by urban neighborhood conditions that shape human health experiences, that in turn shape neighborhood conditions through a complex causal web, raises a challenge for traditional epidemiological causal analyses. This article introduces the loop analysis method, and builds off of a core loop model linking neighborhood property vacancy rate, resident depressive symptoms, rate of neighborhood death, and rate of neighborhood exit in a feedback network. I justify and apply loop analysis to the specific example of depressive symptoms and abandoned urban residential property to show how inquiries into the behavior of causal systems can answer different kinds …

Pathos, Fall 2007, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Laura Pieroni

Issue 4

Effects Of Human Choices On Characteristics Of Urban Ecosystems, Lawrence A. Baker, Anthony J. Brazel, Loren Bryne, Alex Felson, Morgan Grove, Kristina Hill, Kristen C. Nelson, Jason Walker, Vivek Shandas

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Most urban ecology in cities remains an "ecology in cities" rather than an "ecology of cities." Accomplishing the latter requires the inclusion of humans within the concept of "ecosystem," both how humans alter the properties of urban ecosystems and how these alterations in turn influence human well-being. These influences are both direct (e.g., physiological and psychological influences on the human organism) and indirect, by influencing ecosystem sustainability. For the 2007 ESA meeting, Larry Baker, Loren Byrne, Jason Walker, and Alex Felson organized a symposium to address the relationships among human choices and urban ecosystems. In the introductory talk of this …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet October 2007, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The October 2007 Monthly packet includes the October agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held June 2007