Digital Commons Network^™

How Was Your Crossing Experience? Development Of A Pedestrian Satisfaction With Unsignalized Crossings Scale, Seth Lajeunesse, Wesley Kumfer, Sirisha Kothuri, Krista Nordback, Nathan Mcneil

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Unsignalized pedestrian crossing accommodations can improve pedestrian safety, yet their quality of service for pedestrians remains understudied. The present study explored whether and how pedestrians’ satisfaction with crossing unsignalized crossings varied according to the type of crossing accommodation used, that is, the rectangular rapid-flashing beacon (RRFB) with median island, median island alone, marked crosswalk, and unmarked crosswalk. The research team collected intercept survey and video observation data from 358 pedestrians across a total of 40 sites in two different cities. Structural equation models illustrated how pedestrians’ crossing-oriented satisfaction was shaped by their positive perceptions of safety and low levels of …

Pumped Storage Hydropower In The United States: Emerging Importance, Environmental And Social Impacts, And Critical Considerations, Surabhi Karambelkar, Alida Cantor, Thien-Kim Bui, Bethani Turley, Maryalice Fischer, Shannon Ames

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Pumped storage hydropower is a widely used, long-duration energy storage system that sits squarely at the water-energy nexus. Bold decarbonization goals have propelled a rapid resurgence of interest in pumped storage hydropower in the US, given its ability to provide bulk energy storage, manage grid reliability, and support increasing integration of variable renewable energy sources. Drawing on published research from both technical and social science perspectives, this paper provides an overview of pumped storage hydropower technology, the project development pipeline, potential social and environmental impacts, including a comparison of open-loop and closed-loop design configurations, and critical considerations for project development. …

Integrating The Interconnections Between Groundwater And Land Surface Processes Through The Coupled Nasa Land Information System And Parflow Environment, Fadji Z. Maina, Dan Rosen, Peyman Abbaszadeh, Chen Yang, Sujay V. Kumar, Matthew Rodell, Reed Maxwell

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding the interactions between the atmosphere, the land, and the subsurface is fundamental to hydrology and is critical for a better assessment of the impacts of climate change and human management on hydrological systems. However, many land surface models simplify the subsurface hydrology and thereby these interactions. In this study, we couple the land surface model Noah‐MP included in the NASA Land Information System (LIS) with the integrated hydrologic model ParFlow (ParFlow‐LIS) using the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) and the National United Operational Prediction Capability (NUOPC). This coupling improves the simulation of water and energy cycle processes by adding …

Risk-Based Methodology For Structural Evaluation Of Bridge-Sized Culverts, David Yang, Kevin White, Timothy Wood

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report presents the results of the project sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), “Risk Based Methodology for Structural Evaluation of Bridge-Sized Culverts”. The goal of this project was to develop general methodology to (a) quantify uncertainty, especially live load uncertainty, unique to bridge-sized RC box culverts and (b) analyze and calibrate reliability of culverts rated under different rating loads. Over 344 combinations of culvert designs and backfill depths were analyzed based on the AASHTO Manual for Bridge Evaluation as well as the three-dimensional finite element models (FEMs) of the soil-culvert systems. For each combination, a wide range of …

Understanding Anionic Hyperporphyrins: Tddft Calculations On Peripherally Deprotonated Meso-Tetrakis(4-Hydroxyphenyl)Porphyrin., Jeanet Conradie, Carl C. Wamser, Abhik Ghosh

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presented herein is a DFT/TDDFT study of -tetrakis(4-hydroxyphenyl)porphyrin (H[THPP]) and its Meso-deprotonated tetraanionic form; the latter was modeled as both a free tetraanion and with various counterions. Based on our calculations, the experimentally observed hyperporphyrin spectra are attributed to an admixture of phenol/phenoxide character into the a-type HOMO of tetraphenylporphyrin. The admixture results in an elevation of the orbital energy of the HOMO in relation to other frontier orbitals, which accounts for the observed spectral redshifts. The calculations underscore differences in the performance of different exchange-correlation functionals. Thus, while the popular hybrid functional B3LYP greatly exaggerates the redshift of …

Explaining The 2022 Record Low Great Salt Lake Volume, Siiri Bigalke, Paul C. Loikith, Nicholas Siler

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Great Salt Lake reached the lowest water volume in its entire 170+ year record in 2022. To explain this record low we develop and apply a lake mass‐balance model and perform four simulations: one where all input and output variables are fixed to their mid‐20th century average resulting in an equilibrium lake volume, and three others where one of the input variables (precipitation or streamflow) or the output variable (evaporation) follows observations while the other two are fixed to their mid‐20th century average. Results show anomalously low streamflow accounting for the largest proportion of the lake volume departure from …

Structural Earthquake Resiliency Of Rocking Core Systems With Floor Enabled Recentering, S. Taban Hajimirza

Dissertations and Theses

The growing need for structural earthquake resiliency, coupled with increasing demands for environmentally sustainable construction, has driven architects and engineers to emphasize the importance of earthquake-resistant mass timber multistory construction in regions prone to high seismic activity. With advancements in building technologies, cross-laminated timber (CLT) has emerged at the forefront of this movement by unlocking new potentials for urban development.

Motivated by the aforementioned demands, this PhD dissertation investigated lateral behavior and earthquake response of a novel lateral force-resisting structural system, known as Floor Recentering Rocking Core (FLR-ROCR). FLR-ROCR is a low-damage recentering mass-timber system that leverages restoring interactions between …

Integrative Approaches To Climate Resilience Planning: Application Of A Plan Evaluation Framework, Maulsri Jha

Dissertations and Theses

In the last two decades, urban governments have streamlined and prioritized the creation and implementation of climate resilience plans to cater to the communities' vulnerabilities. Existing research illustrates that there is a gap in understanding how, or if, empirical (evidence-based) data are incorporated into the design and implementation of such plans and the extent to which their inclusion impacts outcomes in terms of vulnerability reduction. There is also a gap in the systematic study of their outcomes in terms of community resilience, and whether equity and environmental justice are promoted as priorities.

The purpose of the research is to understand …

Forest Fires Increase Mid-Winter Snowmelt In The Western Oregon Cascades, Sage Ebel

Dissertations and Theses

As the spatiotemporal overlap between burned forests, seasonal snow, extreme precipitation, and mid-winter warming continues to increase with climate change, it is critical we quantify the impacts of forest fires and rain-on-snow (ROS) on mid-winter snowmelt and snow-water resources. In the Pacific Northwest, the release of large volumes of meltwater to downstream receiving water from already vulnerable snowpacks can have catastrophic consequences. I show that forest fires doubled mid-winter snowmelt proportions as compared to unburned reference sites, using a novel network of snow monitoring and micrometeorological stations installed across an elevational and forest type gradient in a burned watershed in …

Prediction-Powered Inference For Clinical Trials, Pierre-Emmanuel Poulet, Maylis Tran, Sophie Tezenas Du Montcel, Bruno Dubois, Stanley Durrleman, Bruno M. Jedynak

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prediction-powered inference (PPI) [1] and its subsequent development called PPI++ [2] provide a novel approach to standard statistical estimation leveraging machine learning systems to enhance unlabeled data with predictions. We use this paradigm in clinical trials. The predictions are provided by disease progression models, providing prognostic scores for all the participants as a function of baseline covariates. The proposed method would empower clinical trials by providing untreated digital twins of the treated patients while remaining statistically valid. The potential implications of this new estimator of the treatment effect in a two-arm randomized clinical trial (RCT) are manifold. First, it leads …

Direct Graphene Growth On Low-Alloy And Mild Steel Surfaces Controlled By Carbon Solubility And Surface Microstructural Transformations During Chemical Vapor Deposition, Kaleb Hood, Nam Nguyen, Sebastian Lara, Adan Velasquez, Samuel Olson, Yi Xia, Jun Jiao

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study demonstrates for the first time, graphene grown directly on the iron-rich surfaces of bulk 8620 low-alloy and 1018 mild steel by chemical vapor deposition, a key step toward developing thin graphene coatings with strong graphene-steel bonding. Low growth temperatures of 660 °C–680 °C, were used to manipulate the steel's carbon solubility, confining carbon diffusion and microstructural transformations to the surface regions, with the bulk relatively unchanged. For 1018, a growth temperature of 680 °C resulted in a multilayer graphene coating with 80 % coverage. The alloying elements in 8620 improved graphene formation by influencing the surface microstructure transformations …

Identifying The Effect Of Architecture Morphology On Wind Fields And Pm2.5 Dispersion At The Urban Block Scale Via A Combined Scheme, Bin Guo, Lu Li, Xiaowei Zhu, Zheng Wang, Miaoyi Chen, Lin Pei, Tengyue Guo

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study explores the potential of architecture morphology to mitigate PM2.5 pollution through enhanced urban ventilation. Despite the recognized influence of building designs on wind and air pollution distribution at the urban block scale, specific mechanisms remain poorly understood. To address this gap, we have developed an integrative approach combining in-situ observations, Geographic Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), and statistical modeling. Here, CFD simulates the flow field and PM2.5 dispersion, using in-situ observations for turbulence model selection. GIS quantify architecture morphology parameters to establish accurate CFD boundary conditions, ensuring simulations reflect real-world conditions and precise …

Identification And Analysis On Surface Deformation In The Urban Area Of Nanchang Based On Ps-Insar Method, Mengping Zhang, Jiayi Pan, Peifeng Ma, Hui Lin

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology has emerged as a vital tool for monitoring surface deformation due to its high accuracy and spatial resolution. With the rapid economic development of Nanchang, extensive infrastructure development and construction activities have significantly altered the urban landscape. Underground excavation and groundwater extraction in the region are potential contributors to surface deformation. This study utilized Sentinel-1 satellite data, acquired between September 2018 and May 2023, and applied the Permanent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) technique to monitor surface deformation in Nanchang’s urban area. The findings revealed that surface deformation rates in the study area …

Turbulent Structures In Coupled Wind-Wave Flows, Cerrina Mouchref

Dissertations and Theses

The interactions between wind and waves in offshore environments are complex and have yet to be fully understood. Analyzing these interactions is motivated by an increased interest in climate modeling and the deployment of offshore construction, such as offshore wind farms. In this study, experiments are performed in a wind tunnel using particle image velocimetry (PIV) to analyze wind-wave interactions over various wave and wind speeds. The addition of the wave, a moving boundary, leads to the use of Reynolds triple decomposition in order to separate the turbulent and wave-phase coherent fluctuations. A curvilinear coordinate system was used to analyze …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet January 2025, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The January 6, 2025 monthly packet includes the agenda, appendices, and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held January 6, 2025.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet December 2025, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The December 2025 monthly packet includes the agenda, appendices, and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments given in the meeting held December 1, 2025.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet November 2025, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The November 2025 monthly packet includes the agenda, appendices, and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments given in the meeting held November 3, 2025.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet June 2025, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The May 2025 monthly packet includes the agenda, appendices, and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments given in the meetings held June 6 and June 9, 2025.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet October 2025, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The October 2025 monthly packet includes the agenda, appendices, and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments given in the meeting held October 6, 2025.

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2025-2026, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Trees, Schools, & Stakeholders: Building Partnerships For Schoolyard Greening With Portland Urban Forestry Learning Landscapes, Claire Brase

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

Portland Urban Forestry Learning Landscapes is a city program offering free tree planting and establishment services to schools, community groups, and multi-residential zones in the city of Portland, Oregon. This project report, completed on behalf of Learning Landscapes, uses qualitative evidence from interviews with school district administrators, teachers, volunteers, grounds staff, city employees, and outreach experts to gain a deeper understanding of the factors leading to successful collaboration between local school districts and their external community partners. These conversations with school and outreach personnel across the city suggest that district staff are interested in collaborative greening organizations like Learning Landscapes …

Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (Ppgis) And Understanding User Conflict On The Rogue River, Kim Gaines-Munkvold

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

This practicum explored the application of Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) to better understand user conflict on the Upper Rogue River, particularly tensions surrounding the use of jetboats. Partnered with Oregon’s Kitchen Table (OKT), who specialize in public engagement within the Hatfield School of Governance at Portland State University, the project supported Oregon state agencies’ effort to gather community input. The practicum consisted of two components - field work and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis. Field work involved traveling to southern Oregon to work as a part of OKT public engagement team at community events and conversations, using a …

Largely Enhanced Out-Of-Plane Electromechanical Coupling Effects In Two-Dimensional Molybdenum-Disulfide/Boron-Nitride Heterostructures, Qiong Liu, Vijay Kumar Choyal, James E. Morris, Timon Rabczuk, Xiaoning Jiang, Xiaoying Zhuang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The electromechanical coupling effects in two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted great interest. However, for 2D TMDs, piezoelectricity is confined to the basal plane, and the flexoelectricity-derived out-of-plane electromechanical response is usually faint, limiting the applications of this material family using the out-of-plane electromechanical effects. Here, this work reports a facile strategy to greatly enhance the out-of-plane electromechanical response of hexagonal molybdenum disulfide (2H-MoS₂) nanoflakes by stacking monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) on 2H-MoS₂ nanoflakes to form MoS₂/BN heterostructures. The d^eff/₃₃ coefficient of MoS₂/BN can reach a value comparable …

Ecobuoys For Scalable Oceanography, Anuscheh Nawaz, Michael Steele, Ruth Branch, David Burnett, Kuotian Liao, Mallory Parker, Eleftheria Roumeli

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

An approach to scalable surface-drifting buoys is needed to enable the high spatial and temporal resolution of oceanographic data that the science and meteorological communities are asking for. With the number of active buoys predicted to increase by a factor of 100 or more, the impact on the environment becomes even more important. Here, we present a pathway to a scalable and sustainable generation of buoys. We identify the main criteria to be used when developing such buoys to be low cost, with reliable data and neutral or even positive environmental impact. For each buoy subsystem—hull, electronics, energy generation and …

Work In Progress: Using Internships As Means For Indirect Assessment Of Abet Criteria 3 “1-7” Student Outcomes, Robert Bass

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at Portland State University (PSU) has developed a Power Engineering Internship (PEI) program that provides engineering career development pathways within the electric utility industry. The PEI is supported by several U.S. Department of Energy grants that aim to develop quality career opportunities and develop a future electric utility workforce that represents the nation’s diverse populations. The PSU ECE Department intends to use surveys of internship participants as assessment tools for its ABET accreditation process, in particular, the ABET Criteria 3 Student Outcomes (SOs). SOs relate to the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that students …

Estimating Electric Power Consumption Of Grid-Enabled Residential Heat Pump Water Heaters, Dana Paresa, Robert Bass

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present two methods for estimating compressor electric power consumption of residential heat pump water heaters. Power is calculated using data from voltage and current instrumentation, which add costs and potential failure points to the unit. The two methods presented herein use thermal instrumentation or derived data that are typically included within modern residential heat pump water heaters. One method uses data from lower and upper tank temperature sensors. The other method uses an attribute that is commonly available within grid-enabled flexible load heat pump water heaters. For both methods, fit equations were derived, for which coefficients are tuned to …

Grid Services Demonstration Using Service-Oriented Derms, Midrar Adham, Sean Keene, Tylor E. Slay, Jaime T. Kolln, Robert Bass

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This work demonstrates four grid service use cases using a service-oriented DER Management System within an Energy Grid of Things network. Imposed by a set of rules referred to as the Energy Service Interface, the DER Management System uses IEEE 2030.5 as its primary communication protocol. To simulate the efforts of Grid Operators, Grid Service Providers, and consumers to provide grid services, a co-simulation environment that leverages the GridAPPS-D simulation platform was developed. The results show that a service-oriented DER Management System provides a means of achieving reliable and impactful grid services while protecting customers’ privacy and ensuring their agency …

Unsupervised Oct Image Interpolation Using Deformable Registration And Generative Models, Shuwen Wei, Samuel W. Remedios, Bruno Jedynak, Peter Calabresi, Shiv Saidha, Aaron Carass, Multiple Additional Authors

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images are often acquired as highly anisotropic volumes, where the scanning step is dense along the fast axis but sparse along the slow axis. This affects image analysis, such as image registration for longitudinal alignment. To create more isotropic volumes, bicubic interpolation can be used along the slow axis, but it generally produces blurry features. Registration-based interpolation can reduce blurriness, but often fails to generate realistic OCT images. Deep generative models can sample realistic images, but lack the structural consistency constraints required for interpolation. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised image interpolation method that combines …

An Offline Approach For Frequency Event Detection In Power Systems: Tkeo And Statistical Analysis, Hussain A. Alghamdi, Midrar Adham, Umar Farooq, Robert Bass

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The increasing integration of renewable energy sources in power grids and the transition from conventional thermal-based generation to inverter-based resources for power generation have reduced power system inertia and increased the rate of change of frequency, which constitutes a challenge for frequency stability in modern power systems. These changes necessitate robust frequency event detection algorithms that can rapidly and accurately identify events, providing essential support to maintain stability. This paper proposes a frequency event detection algorithm with six tunable parameters for offline post-processing, leveraging the Teager-Kaiser Energy Operator method and statistical analysis. The algorithm is tested on a dataset comprised …

Whipped Into Shape: Infrastructure As Punishment For The Unruly Citizen, Eliza Mortimer

Anthós

This article interrogates how inflexible designs and policies of airline seating, as well as critical socio-political rhetoric, discipline and marginalize bodies that do not conform to normative standards. Situating airline seating within fat and disability studies models, Mortimer argues that these punitive measures are not neutral, but rather reflective of cultural narratives of productivity, morality, and bodily discipline. Mortimer draws from ethnographic analyses of first-person accounts and policy reviews to demonstrate how shrinking seats, rigid policies, and moralized discourse construct a “space of calculability” that pressures fat individuals to monitor and minimize their bodies to justify their presence in public …