Digital Commons Network^™

Meet Students Where They Are: Centering Wikipedia In The Classroom, Diana E. Park, Laurie M. Bridges

Communications in Information Literacy

There is a common classroom refrain, “Don’t use Wikipedia; it’s unreliable.” Unfortunately, this simple dismissal of the world’s largest repository of information fails to engage students in a critical conversation about how knowledge within Wikipedia is constructed and shared. Wikipedia is available in almost 300 languages, it is the top result in most Google searches, and it provides free, well-sourced, information to millions of people every day. However, despite these positives, there is uneven geographic, historical, and cultural representation; there are well-known information gaps related to women, gender, and sexual identity; and the majority of Wikipedia editors are white, …

An Elastic Recommender Process For Cloud Service Recommendation Scalability, Rui-Dong Qi, Jian-Tao Zhou, Zhuowei Wang, Xiaoyu Song

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cloud computing services are ubiquitous in society and cloud recommender systems play a crucial role in intelligently selecting services for cloud users. Currently, recommendations are static with low scalability. Only one recommendation list is generated at a time and the recommender strategy in the recommendation cycle is not adjustable. This paper presents a new elastic recommender process (ERP) for cloud users. A Markov model is used to characterize the dynamic relationship between different user states. The ERP generates an elastic recommendation that can be used to dynamically adjust the recommender strategy to meet the user's needs based on their browsing …

Poster: Indoor Navigation For Visually Impaired People With Vertex Colored Graphs, Pei Du, Nirupama Bulusu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Visually impaired people face many daily encumbrances. Traditional visual enhancements do not suffice to navigate indoor environments. In this paper, we explore path finding algorithms such as Dijkstra and A* combined with graph coloring to find a safest and shortest path for visual impaired people to navigate indoors. Our mobile application is based on a database which stores the locations of several spots in the building and their corresponding label. Visual impaired people select the start and destination when they want to find their way, and our mobile application will show the appropriate path which guarantees their safety.

Scenario Acceleration Through Automated Modelling: A Method And System For Creating Traceable Quantitative Future Scenarios Based On Fcm System Modeling And Natural Language Processing, Christopher W.H. Davis

Dissertations and Theses

Scenario planning is used extensively in strategic planning because it helps leaders broaden their perspectives and make better decisions by presenting possible futures in story form. Some of the benefits of using scenarios include breaking away from groupthink, creating better products, acceleration of organization learning and reducing bias. Product development teams, particularly for digital products, are gaining more autonomy in organizations and tend to manage risk by undergoing very short development iterations on their products while leaning on their consumers for feedback -- a process known as agile development. This method tends to limit the perspective of the team and …

Wake Bifurcations Behind Two Circular Disks In Tandem Arrangement, Jianzhi Yang, Xiaowei Wu, Minghou Liu, Changjian Wang, Yuxin Wu, Zhihe Shen

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The wake bifurcations behind two circular disks in tandem arrangement are investigated through numerical simulations. The separation distance between the disks, S/d, is chosen at 1, 2, 4, and 6, and the Reynolds number, Re, lies in the range of 100 Re 500. The wake dynamics are examined in terms of the flow structures as well as drag and lift coefficient characteristics. Seven main wake regimes are observed in the considered (Re, S/d) space: steady state (SS), Zig-zig (Zz) mode, standing wave mode, periodic state with reflectional symmetry breaking (RSB), periodic state with double-helical (DH) structures shedding, periodic state with …

Developing An Assessment Model For Entrepreneurship Ecosystems Using Hierarchical Decision Model: Case Study Of Riyadh City, Mustafa Kamal Almuzel

Dissertations and Theses

Entrepreneurship is one of the major drivers of economies. Countries that aim to improve their economies by increasing entrepreneurial activities and its effectiveness need to develop an effective entrepreneurship ecosystem. This ecosystem combines a set of domains and factors that create a healthy environment for entrepreneurs. The analysis shows that there is limited research about structured assessment methods to evaluate the entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Therefore, this research objective is to introduce a universal assessment model that can be adopted in different cities for implementing an effective entrepreneurial ecosystem. This will be achieved by addressing three main research questions. 1) What are …

Stillness And Motion On The Coffee Table: Photochemical Motion Pictures In Gilded Age Periodical, Amy E. Borden

School of Film Faculty Publications and Presentations

My research suggests that in addition to local practices, American film historians should continue to be attentive to mass experiences determined not only by location but, in this case, by 19th century periodical reading habits. I focus on the first four years of US public photochemical motion picture exhibition to consider the similarities I found in the use of still photographs to explain and introduce the machines and development processes used to introduce photochemical motion pictures to middle-class reading publics, effectively inviting readers to mentally animate the images themselves in imitatiion of a screening apparatus. I argue that the use …

Cultural Capital And Community Cultural Wealth: A Study Of Latinx First Generation College Students, Affiong Eyo-Idahor

Dissertations and Theses

When compared to Blacks, Asians, and Whites, Latinxs have lower rates of educational attainment at every level from secondary education to advanced postsecondary degrees (Ryan and Bauman 2016). This study focuses on Latinx first generation college students and uses Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) theory to illuminate the ways this population navigates college through employing the strengths from their home community. The Latinx population is the largest ethnic or racial minority group in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau 2017. By 2060, they are expected to account for nearly 29% of the US population (U.S. Census Bureau 2017). While the …

Developing An Energy Service Interface Specification, Jaime T. Kolln

Dissertations and Theses

Developing an Energy Service Interface (ESI) specification requires engaging a community of stakeholders including grid operators, Information and Communication Technology implementors, integrators, and finally standards bodies who will define an interface that respects and boundaries of ownership and roles of responsibility in order to activate millions of Distributed Energy Resources for the provision of grid services. By applying Interoperability Maturity Model Criteria and ESI principles to common grid-DER service use cases, the Grid Modernization Lab Consortium team will engage subject matter experts to develop a specification, with an eventual goal of informing development of ESI compliant profiles or standards. The …

Prioritizing Transit In Portland: Checking In On The Rose Lanes Project, Nathan Mcneil, April Bertelsen, Jaime Jeffrey, Jaime Snook

PSU Transportation Seminars

Transit priority lanes restrict access to certain lanes, prioritizing transit movement, while sometimes allowing for other users or specific actions - for example shared bus and bike lanes, or shared bus and right-turn lanes. Red coloring is sometimes used to reinforce the transit priority with the goal of improving the reliability, safety and compliance with the lane restrictions. The City of Portland and TriMet have been working with partners to use these tools to improve mobility and transit access under the Enhanced Transit Corridors Plan and Rose Lanes Project. This presentation will report back on early lessons learned as …

A Social-Ecological-Technological Systems Framework For Urban Ecosystem Services, Timon Mcphearson, Elizabeth M. Cook, Marta Berbés-Blázquez, Chingwen Cheng, Nancy B. Grimm, Erik Andersson, Olga Barbosa, David G. Chandler, Heejun Chang, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As rates of urbanization and climatic change soar, decision-makers are increasingly challenged to provide innovative solutions that simultaneously address climate change impacts and risks and inclusively ensure quality of life for urban residents. Cities have turned to nature-based solutions to help address these challenges. Nature-based solutions, through the provision of ecosystem services, can yield numerous benefits for people and address multiple challenges simultaneously. Yet, efforts to mainstream nature-based solutions are impaired by the complexity of the interacting social, ecological, and technological dimensions of urban systems. This complexity must be understood and managed to ensure ecosystem-service provisioning is effective, equitable, and …

Advancing Our Understanding Of Green Roofs With Samantha Hartzell, Samantha Hartzell

PDXPLORES Podcast

Green roofs provide a variety of benefits including increasing stormwater retention, lowering cooling costs and mitigating the urban heat island effect. However, the ecosystem services provided by green roofs vary by vegetation choice and environmental conditions.

Assistant Professor Samantha Hartzell is an ecohydrologist whose research focuses on developing technologies to improve green roof designs, inform vegetation selection, and better understand the value of green roofs.

Click on the "Download" button to access the audio transcript.

The Legacy Of Redlining: A Geospatial Analysis Of Environmental Burdens In Portland, Oregon, Warren Louis Gunn, Meenakshi Rao

University Honors Theses

Historically-redlined neighborhoods across the metropolitan United States -- most often socioeconomically disadvantaged communities of color -- have been shown in multiple studies to be disproportionately affected by environmental burdens, having greater exposure to air, water, and ground pollution as well as being subject to the "urban heat island" effect, among other disparities. Studies into the continuing environmental inequity present in these communities in Portland, Oregon specifically have addressed this phenomenon, finding that these neighborhoods are 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average than their wealthier and (mostly) whiter counterparts, in large part due to a lack of green spaces and tree …

Artificial Intelligence As A Content Creator In The Publishing Industry, John Huston

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

Several methods were used in my research. A literature review was used to define artificial intelligence (AI) in general and in relation to how it’s used in literature today. I also relied heavily on Dr Leah Henrickson’s work on Natural Language Generation (NLG), which discusses authorship and roles between authors and readers.

Several case studies were used in my research. Liam Porr’s Guardian Op-ed was reviewed as his team used humans to edit GPT-3 output for a coherent article, much like I used it in a focus group. The Kimagure Artificial Intelligence Writer’s Project was also evaluated. The writing for …

Systemic Opportunities To Improve Older Pedestrian Safety: Merging Crash Data Analysis And A Stakeholder Workshop, Jason C. Anderson, Sirisha Kothuri, Christopher M. Monsere, David S. Hurwitz

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents a framework for improving older pedestrian safety in regard to serious (fatal and incapacitating) crashes, using Oregon as a case study. On review of state and federal practices pertaining to older pedestrian safety, 4 years of crash data identified 112 older (≥ 65 years) pedestrian serious injury crashes. These data were explored for factors that might be addressed systemically using two methods. First, raw frequencies in the crash data were assessed to determine trends and crash-related factors that are overrepresented. Second, a random forest analysis was conducted to determine important variables for predicting older pedestrian serious injury …

Understanding The Transport And Chemistry Of Indoor Air During Wildfire Smoke Events With Elliott Gall, Elliott T. Gall

PDXPLORES Podcast

Dr. Elliott Gall, Associate Professor in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department at Portland State University, studies indoor air quality in order to better understand how to improve building designs to promote health.

Wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity. So, too, are wildfire smoke events. Smoke from wildfires pose serious health risks. That is why the Environmental Protection Agency recommends individuals remain indoors during smoke events.

In this episode, Professor Gall discusses the importance of understanding the chemistry of wildfire smoke indoors and how smoke is transported into buildings.

Click on the "Download" button to access the audio transcript.

Delaware’S Climate Action Plan: Omission Of Source Attribution From Land Conversion Emissions, Elena A. Mikhailova, Lili Lin, Hamdi A. Zurqani, Zhenbang Hao, Christopher J. Post, Mark A. Schlautman, Gregory C. Post, George B. Shepard

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Delaware’s (DE) Climate Action Plan lays out a pathway to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 26% by 2025 but does not consider soil-based GHG emissions from land conversions. Consequently, DE’s climate action plan fails to account for the contribution of emissions from ongoing land development economic activity to climate change. Source attribution (SA) is a special field within the science of climate change attribution, which can generate “documentary evidence” (e.g., GHG emissions inventory, etc.). The combination of remote sensing and soil information data analysis can identify the source attribution of GHG emissions from land conversions for DE. …

Investigating Active Learning Through The Lens Of Student Engagement, Nicole Naibert

Dissertations and Theses

Incorporating active learning into a course has been generally found to lead to improved student learning outcomes; however, not all students benefit from these environments to the same extent. Although active learning environments provide the opportunity for students to interact and engage with the material, whether a student decides to do so is completely up to them. Therefore, the goal of this dissertation was to begin exploring active learning environments through the lens of student engagement and relevant associated variables (i.e., self-efficacy and student perceptions). This was completed through three separate but related projects.

Project I focused on investigating flipped …

Using E-Bike Incentive Programs To Expand The Market – Trends And Best Practices, John Macarthur, Cameron Bennett

PSU Transportation Seminars

John MacArthur and Cameron Bennett of Portland State University will be presenting the findings and recommendations from their recent white paper "Using E-Bike Incentive Programs to Expand the Market – Trends and Best Practices." This will include a review of the 50+ current, past, and proposed e-bike purchase incentive programs in North America, including summary statistics and details from exemplary programs. Best practice gained from review of the programs and discussion with program managers, industry professionals, and other stakeholders will be shared. A discussion of the benefits of promoting e-bike uptake in regard to mode shift, VMT, emissions, and human …

Characteristics Of The Wake Of An Inclined Prolate Spheroid In Uniform Shear Flow, Zhe Wang, Jianzhi Yang, Helge I. Andersson, Xiaowei Wu, Yuxin Wu, Liping Wang, Minghou Liu

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Flow around an inclined 5:2 prolate spheroid with the incidence angle α = 45° is numerically investigated in a uniform shear flow. The Reynolds number based on the inflow center velocity Uc and the volume-equivalent sphere diameter De of the spheroid are considered at Re = 480, 600, 700, and 750. The non-dimensional shear rate K is ranged from 0 to 0.1. Five qualitatively different wake modes are observed, including a new mode characterized by multi-periodic shedding of hairpin vortices with regular rotation of the separation region. In general, the wake transition is suppressed with increasing shear rate. …

Barriers And Supports For Stem Motivation For Pacific Islander High School And Undergraduate Students, Shanthia N. Espinosa, Alma M. O. Trinidad, Lisa K. Marriott

Student Research Symposium

Pacific Islander (PI) students disproportionately come from low socioeconomic backgrounds and are often first-generation college students. PI students have been historically underserved with limited access to educational resources and support. As a result, PI students face low student retention rates and have reported dissatisfaction with higher education student services. There is little research dedicated to understanding the STEM experiences of PI students related to access, success, and motivational resilience in higher education. This study examines barriers and facilitating factors for motivation among PI students using electronic surveys, focus groups, and group discussions. Participants comprise high school and undergraduates residing in …

Social Capital And Cross-Boundary Collaboration In Wyoming Wildfire Management Networks, Hannah L. Spencer, Christian Heisler

Student Research Symposium

Wildfire hotspots often intersect jurisdictional boundaries, so protecting human communities and restoring healthy fire regimes will require collaborative, cross-boundary action from fire managers. However, collaboration between fire management groups can have varied outcomes depending on the actors involved, all with different missions, financial obligations, and cultures. One way to conceptualize the interactions between actors is with the idea of social capital. We will investigate the following research question: how does social capital impact cross-boundary collaboration in wildfire management networks? We will survey wildfire managers in northwestern Wyoming about their collaborative actions using a snowball sampling method. Using Social Network Analysis …

Investigation Of The Externship Selection Process Across Asha-Accredited Speech Language Pathology Programs, Teale Niles, Lindsey Schwab, Brandon Eddy

Student Research Symposium

Graduate students in speech-language pathology (SLP) must complete 400 clinical clock hours during graduate training, the majority of which frequently come from off-campus externship experiences. Graduate students are matched to externship sites by their program. No studies to date have systematically documented how graduate programs in speech-language pathology select students for externship experiences nor the constraints involved in the externship process (e.g., academic schedule). The goal of this study is to survey ASHA accredited SLP programs to describe the current procedures being used to place students at externship sites and the roles and perspectives of the externship coordinators. Externship coordinators …

Comparison Of Heavy Metals In Spinach Grown On The Roof Ground Location At Portland State University, Tyler A. Robin

Student Research Symposium

As a result of urbanization, fresh, healthy food can be expensive and easily contaminated but space for local farming is limited. Roofs can be underutilized in densely populated cities and can offer a space for local fresh farming. The purpose of this study is to continue a previous study done in 2021, to find if growing leafy vegetables on the roof can limit heavy metal exposure from air pollutants. This study compares spinach grown on the roof in 2021, 2019 and spinach bought from stores around the Portland State University campus and the heavy metals found in these greens. The …

Surface Plasmon Characterization In Ag Nanotriangles For Evaluation Of Fano Resonance Conditions, Nabila Islam

Student Research Symposium

Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) is a collective oscillation of electrons and light at the metal -dielectric interface excited by the incident radiation on metal surface through the momentum matching conditions. The properties of SPPs and the resonance conditions are highly dependent on the confining materials and geometry of the confining nanostructure. The sensitivity of the surface plasmon resonance to the property of the confining materials made Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors a central tool for biosensing. However, the frequency resolution of SPR sensors is typically limited by the broad resonance of the SPR mode. The resolution can be enhanced through …

Memristors, Memcapacitors And Their Application In Neuromorphic Computing, Nithyakalyani Sampath

Student Research Symposium

Data-intensive computing operations, such as training neural networks, are essential but energy-intensive. Memcapacitance and memristance,which can be described as capacitance and resistance, with “memory”, are properties of semiconductor devices that are observed on the nano-scale. These properties allow for data storage without a constant source of power, leading to hardware which is more energy efficient.

We intend to demonstrate that we can build specialized hardware onto which a neural network can be directly mapped using memristors and memcapacitors, improving the energy efficiency of the network. We will use Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) to model our memcapacitor and …

Visualization Of Eye Development In Annual Killifish Using Whole-Mount Immunohistochemistry, Carmen Z. Rodriguez, Jason Podrabsky

Student Research Symposium

Vertebrate eye development is highly conserved. Current models have identified the gene networks involved in eye development, but lack the context of extreme environmental conditions that challenge these fundamental programs. Typical vertebrates live for many years while annual killifishes can complete their entire adult lifespan in a matter of weeks. Thus, annual killifishes are a strong model for age-related diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD); an irreversible loss of central vision. Annual killifishes enter embryonic diapause; a period of developmental and metabolic dormancy. These embryos are extremely resistant to environmental stresses such as hypoxia/anoxia that would cause irreparable damage …

Growing Reservoir Networks Using The Genetic Algorithm Deep Hyperneat, Nancy L. Mackenzie

Student Research Symposium

Typical Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have static architectures. The number of nodes and their organization must be chosen and tuned for each task. Choosing these values, or hyperparameters, is a bit of a guessing game, and optimizing must be repeated for each task. If the model is larger than necessary, this leads to more training time and computational cost. The goal of this project is to evolve networks that grow according to the task at hand. By gradually increasing the size and complexity of the network to the extent that the task requires, we will build networks that are more …

Mapping Ecosystem Service Flows Of Estuary Restoration Projects On The Oregon Coast To Identify Impacted Stakeholders, Shersten Finley

Student Research Symposium

Restoration of largely depleted estuarine systems is increasingly recognized as key to solving a variety of problems coastal communities face currently. Many of these issues will become more acute with climate change and sea level rise. Historic losses of estuary area, and recognition of the ecosystem services provided by functioning estuary ecosystems have resulted in current impetus to pursue estuary restoration. By mapping the flows of ecosystem services using three ecosystem service ‘scorecard’ categories pertaining to coastal resource management: recreation, aesthetics, and cultural/historical/spiritual, we gain a better understanding of the populations impacted by the changes in flows of ecosystem service …

Factors Impacting Heritage Language Maintenance In Children, Helena Sai

Student Research Symposium

This review article aims to examine families’ beliefs and strategies regarding heritage language maintenance in the US. Language status, caregiver beliefs, and community factors are explored in relation to language maintenance across generations. The broader context in which parents make decisions about family language policies were investigated through the following research questions:

1. What is the nature of the relationship between a heritage language’s language status in society and language maintenance across generations?

2. How do parents’ beliefs about the impact of heritage language on academic, social, and career success influence their decision to pass this language to their children?

3. To what …

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