Digital Commons Network^™

The Columbia River's Fate In The Twentieth Century, William L. Lang

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Discusses the history of the Columbia River during the 20th century, emphasizing the image of the river as both a source of industry and an example of wild natural beauty. In 1933 the river was dammed to harness its power for hydroelectricity and control its unpredictable flooding. With the completion of the dams in the 1970's, however, came problems with the edenic vision of the river, especially with the annual salmon run. By the late 20th century, the salmon had all but disappeared, leading to an ongoing conflict between supporters of the dams and conservationists.

Modeling The Bull Run River-Reservoir System, Scott A. Wells

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The City of Portland, Water Bureau currently operates 2 Bull Run reservoirs, Reservoir #2 and Reservoir #1 as a water supply source in the Bull Run watershed shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. The Water Bureau wants to operate their water supply system in order to meet both water supply objectives and fish habitat objectives downstream of the Bull Run reservoirs in Bull Run River. In addition, a third Bull Run reservoir has been proposed as an additional water supply source. This reservoir also may be used to meet water supply and fish habitat objectives in Bull Run River. …

Teaching Systems Science In High School Compared To Graduate School, Wayne W. Wakeland

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper compares System Dynamic models built by graduate students to those built by high school students. The motivation behind this comparison is to explore the question: "How effectively is feedback-oriented system dynamics being taught in secondary schools compared to graduate school?" The paper will also speculate regarding implications for other systems concepts.

The Bone Yard, Katherine Bartolomucci

Dissertations and Theses

This novel explores the everyday lives of two blue-collar workers Levi and Cressida -over the course of one summer in a rural fruit processing plant. The main protagonists exhibit contrasting forms of faith and courage, which drives their divergent fates.

Levi is a soul-searching twenty-five-year-old high school dropout who feels extraordinary obligation to family and is engaged to his pregnant girlfriend. Although Levi's father wants him to stay home and take over the family's strawberry farm, he intends to amass the courage to return to school and get a degree in agronomy.

In contrast, Cressida is a twenty-year-old senior in …

Life And Evolution In Computers, Melanie Mitchell

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper argues for the possibility of 'artificial life' and computational evolution, first by discussing (via a highly simplified version) John von Neumann's self-reproducing automaton and then by presenting some recent work focusing on computational evolution, in which 'cellular automata', a form of parallel and decentralized computing system, are evolved via 'genetic algorithms'. It is argued that such in silico experiments can help to make sense of the question of whether we can eventually build computers that are intelligent and alive.

Design And Evaluation Of A Specialized Computer Architecture For Manipulating Binary Decision Diagrams, Robert K. Hatt

Dissertations and Theses

Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) are an extremely important data structure used in many logic design, synthesis and verification applications. Symbolic problem representations make BDDs a feasible data structure for use on many problems that have discrete representations. Efficient implementations of BOD algorithms on general purpose computers has made manipulating large binary decision diagrams possible. Much research has gone into making BOD algorithms more efficient on general purpose computers. Despite amazing increases in performance and capacity of such computers over the last decade, they may not be the best way to solve large, specialized problems. A computer architecture designed specifically to …

Integrated Floorplanning And Buffer Insertion For Bus-Based Microprocessor Designs, Faran Rafiq

Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis, we propose a novel algorithm for the interconnect driven floorplanning problem that integrates bus planning with floorplanning. This integrated floorplanner is intended for bus-based designs in which the layout is considered to be a set of blocks connected through buses. Each bus consists of a large number of wires. Our floorplanner allocates the exact location and shape of the interconnect (both above and between the circuit blocks) and ensures routability as well as optimizes the timing goals. Our experiments with benchmarks clearly show the superiority of integrated floorplanning approach over the classical floorplan-analyze-and-then-refloorplan approach. Our initial results …

Meeting Notes 1999-12-09 [Part A] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-12-09 [Part B] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-12-09 [Part C] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet December 1999, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The December 1999 Monthly packet includes the December agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held November 1999.

Service Reliability Impacts Of Computer-Aided Dispatching And Automatic Vehicle Location Technology: A Tri-Met Case Study, James G. Strathman, Kenneth Dueker, Thomas J. Kimpel, Rick Gerhart, Ken Turner, Pete Turner, Steve Callas, David Griffin

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This paper presents findings on initial changes in service reliability following Tri-Met’s deployment of a new bus dispatching system using automatic vehicle location and automatic passenger counter technology. Changes in on-time performance, headway variation, run time variation, and run times were determined with respect to pre-deployment levels. Changes in headway variation and run times were also used to estimate the initial benefits of the new system with respect to operating costs, passenger waiting, and passenger travel time.

Work In Progress: Automating Proportion/Period Scheduling, David Steere, Jonathan Walpole, Calton Pu

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The recent effort to define middleware capable of supporting real-time applications creates the opportunity to raise the level of abstraction presented to the programmer. We propose that proportion/period is a better abstraction for specifying resource needs and allocation than priorities. We are currently investigating techniques to address some issues that are restricting use of proportion/period scheduling to research real-time prototypes. In particular, we are investigating techniques to automate the task of selecting proportion and period, and that allow proportion/period to incorporate job importance under overload conditions.

A Comparison Of Training Algorithms For Dhp Adaptive Critic Neuro-Control, George G. Lendaris, Thaddeus T. Shannon, Andres Rustan

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

A variety of alternate training strategies for implementing the Dual Heuristic Programming (DHP) method of approximate dynamic programming in the neuro-control context are explored. The DHP method of controller training has been successfully demonstrated by a number of authors on a variety of control problems in recent years, but no unified view of the implementation details of the method has yet emerged. A number of options are here described for sequencing the training of the Controller and Critic networks in DHP implementations. Results are given about their relative efficiency and the quality of the resulting controllers for two benchmark control …

Meeting Notes 1999-11-18 [Part A] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-11-18 [Part D] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-11-18 [Part F] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-11-18 [Part C] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-11-18 [Part B] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Harrowing Heroines And Communist Plots: Krest'ianka And Rural Policy, 1946-1949, Rachael Preiss Susman

Dissertations and Theses

After World War II, women became very important to the Soviet plan to reassert control over the countryside and reestablish agriculture in those areas hard hit by war. This happened because long term migration trends to the city and wartime casualties had made women the majority in the countryside. There was a need for them to exceed their previous contributions to agriculture, even as they struggled to cope with wartime losses.

State propaganda encouraged rural women to regard employment in agriculture as their patriotic duty. This study analyzes one publication aimed at rural women, Krest'ianka, and examines the following …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet November 1999, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The November 1999 Monthly packet includes the November agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held October 1999.

Biotechnology And The Environment: Issues And Linkages, Sandra S. Batie, David E. Ervin

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The rapidity of change has left scant opportunity for investigation of the consequences of biotechnology adoption on long-term ecosystem or economic system functioning. Economic theory suggests that, if the "Biotechnology Revolution" is left to market forces alone, there will be neglected public goods. Theory and limited empirical evidence suggests that there are significant incentives for private firms to discount and neglect negative environmental impacts and to develop products that meet only the needs of those able and willing to pay. Negative distributional impacts on rural societies and economies will not normally enter the private calculus nor will the long-term problems …

Investigation Of Image Feature Extraction By A Genetic Algorithm, Steven P. Brumby, James P. Theiler, Simon J. Perkins, Neal R. Harvey, John J. Szymanski, Jeffrey J. Bloch, Melanie Mitchell

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We describe the implementation and performance of a genetic algorithm which generates image feature extraction algorithms for remote sensing applications. We describe our basis set of primitive image operators and present our chromosomal representation of a complete algorithm. Our initial application has been geospatial feature extraction using publicly available multi-spectral aerial-photography data sets. We present the preliminary results of our analysis of the efficiency of the classic genetic operations of crossover and mutation for our application, and discuss our choice of evolutionary control parameters. We exhibit some of our evolved algorithms, and discuss possible avenues for future progress.

Meeting Notes 1999-10-14 [Part A] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-10-14 [Part B] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet October 1999, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The October 1999 Monthly packet includes the October agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held June 1999.

Automated Bus Dispatching, Operations Control, And Service Reliability: The Initial Tri-Met Experience, James G. Strathman, Kenneth Dueker, Thomas J. Kimpel, Rick Gerhart, Ken Turner, Pete Taylor, Steve Callas, David Griffin

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This paper presents findings on initial changes in service reliability following Tri-Met’s deployment of a new bus dispatching system using automatic vehicle location and automatic passenger counter technology. Changes in on-time performance, headway variation, run time variation, and run times were determined with respect to pre-deployment levels. Changes in headway variation and run times were also used to estimate the initial benefits of the new system with respect to operating costs, passenger waiting, and passenger travel time.

Community Building Sourcebook: Land Use And Transportation Initiatives In Portland, Oregon, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District Of Oregon

TriMet Collection

No abstract provided.

Meeting Notes 1999-09-09 [Part B] , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Implementation And Performance Of Error Correction Codes For High-Speed Computer Networks, Jochen Spengler

Dissertations and Theses

During the transmission of data there is always a possibility that errors occur and some pieces are modified. If the receiver detects an error it either sends a request for retransmission or, like in networks using Ethernet, it does not send an acknowledgment for the erroneous frame. In this case the sender waits a certain time and retransmits the frame. With the development of faster computer networking hardware and the need for more real-time applications, these errors have become a major concern. Long retransmission latencies and the need for large memories for buffering drive the development of more reliable network …