Digital Commons Network^™

Race And Income As Predictors Of Trust In Flood Mitigation Strategies, Wendy Nathaly Sangucho Loachamin

Dissertations and Theses

Trust plays a central role in coastal flooding management because the support or opposition to costly mitigation strategies depends, in part, on how much stakeholders trust in the effectiveness of these strategies. Despite the importance of trust in the approval of flood mitigation strategies, trust is rarely measured. Furthermore, Environmental Justice (EJ) studies have consistently shown that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and low-income communities are more vulnerable to environmental hazards. Therefore, if these communities are more exposed to flooding, we hypothesize they will have less trust in flood mitigation strategies to protect them; yet trust is understudied …

The Affective Discourses Of Eviction: Right To Counsel In New York City, Hadley Savana Bates

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the interrelationships of urban policy, affect, and power through a critical discourse analysis of New York City's "Universal Access to Legal Services" / "Right to Counsel" ordinance, a 2017 initiative that has persisted amidst the evolving landscape of eviction diversion following the outbreak of Covid-19. By examining archival documents regarding the groundbreaking policy, this research reveals how affective discourses regarding vulnerability, stress, and solidarity situate political actors in relation to urban policy, political movement, and the material conditions of survival. Drawing upon critical policy studies and affect theory, this study underscores the affective dimensions of policy mobility …

A Just Futures Framework: Insurgent Roller-Skating In Portland, Oregon, Célia Camile Beauchamp

Dissertations and Theses

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, insurgent roller-skating has 're-emerged' as a popular use of urban space. Drawing on spatial justice theories, futures literature, and queer spatial theory, this study theorizes a four-part just futures framework to analyze the nuance and tension within the roller-skating scene in Portland, Oregon. The just futures framework: 1) creates a space for expanding planning practice to reflect overlooked and suppressed perspectives on urban space; 2) explores insurgent urbanism’s contradiction between the reification of hegemonic systems and its counter-hegemonic and subversive qualities; and 3) assesses the spatial and planning implications of insurgent …

Real-Time Length Sensing Of Braided Pneumatic Actuator Using Ir Time-Of-Flight Sensor, Luon B. Chung

Dissertations and Theses

Braided Pneumatic Actuators (BPAs) are used widely in robotics as artificial muscles because of their similar characteristics to biological muscles. When a BPA is pressurized, it expands in the radial direction and contracts in the longitudinal direction. The contraction generates a pulling force that is dependent on the input pressure and BPA length. Biological muscle also behaves in the same way where a pulling force is generated on a contraction. To control BPAs on a robot, the real-time pressure and length measurements are necessary. In this dissertation, I present a new method to measure length of BPAs in real-time using …

"We Just Have To Trust The People In White Lab Coats": Analyzing Distrust In Vaccine Hesitant Comments On The Hhs Nondiscrimination In Health Programs And Activities Proposed Rule, Hima Bindu Lakshmi Vedantham

Dissertations and Theses

Vaccine attitudes provide a valuable site for analyzing trust relations on both interpersonal and institutional levels. This study is a content analysis of public comments submitted from August through October 2022 in response to a proposed rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which sought to strengthen non-discrimination protections in healthcare programs. Specifically, it examines the role of distrust in shaping and reinforcing vaccine hesitant beliefs, experiences, and healthcare decisions. The five themes identified in the study illustrate a breakdown in trust in pharmaceutical companies, government actors, and healthcare providers, reflecting broader social patterns. In the …

The New Profits Of Pleasure: Reality Television And Affective Exploitation In Post-Pandemic Neoliberalism, Sophia Aepfelbacher

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis uses reality television and the parasocial relationships it cultivates as a microcosm to better understand the current form of neoliberalism as well as the implications it has for democracy. I extend the preexisting scholarship surrounding neoliberalism and reality television by emphasizing the importance of social media in understanding that link. By conducting a case study of Netflix's Love is Blind, I demonstrate how both reality television content and the reality-television-participant-to-influencer pipeline serve to reinforce neoliberal values by constructing powerful cultural imaginaries such as a model of care and self-sufficiency that centers marriage and the household. I argue …

A Mixed Methods Approach To Understanding The Links Between Mining, Climate Change And Selected Health Outcomes In India, Mary J. Cheruvillil

Dissertations and Theses

Despite ample evidence of the significant role that mining activities play in determining health outcomes, in India there is a dearth of comprehensive health studies that draw linkages between mining and health. The purpose of the following study is to investigate the impact of mining activities on population health in India using three different methods: ecological multivariable regression, exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and content analysis of government documents using a phenomenological approach. The first aim uses the ecological multivariable regression to examine associations between mining activities and children’s malnutrition outcomes at the district level. Census data, the Demographic Health …

The Radical Relationality Of Complex Partnerships: Community-Member Experiences In Critical Community-Based Learning, Amie Riley

Dissertations and Theses

Through a radical relationality within the social-ecological systems that sustain us, critical community-based learning (CBL) in higher education offers a praxis for engaging the demanding pedagogical and community challenges we face. When CBL is implemented as both a critical and sustainability pedagogy, as a strategy for social change, the relationships created by CBL partnerships have the potential to generate transformational outcomes for all partnership agents. Using a critical complexity theoretical framework, a bricolage of complexity science and critical theory, this critical qualitative study sought to understand the systemic patterns and behaviors of a community-based learning partnership by elevating community-member voices. …

Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning For Radiation Localization, Benjamin Scott Totten

Dissertations and Theses

For the safety of both equipment and human life, it is important to identify the location of orphaned radioactive material as quickly and accurately as possible. There are many factors that make radiation localization a challenging task, such as low gamma radiation signal strength and the need to search in unknown environments without prior information. The inverse-square relationship between the intensity of radiation and the source location, the probabilistic nature of nuclear decay and gamma ray detection, and the pervasive presence of naturally occurring environmental radiation complicates localization tasks. The presence of obstructions in complex environments can further attenuate the …

Drivers And Dynamics Of Phytoplankton Communities And Harmful Algal Blooms In Mountain Lakes, Lara Stephanie Jansen

Dissertations and Theses

Harmful cyanobacterial blooms (cyanoHABs) are a complex and widespread disturbance in freshwater water bodies, impacting water quality for wildlife and human populations. While cyanobacteria often bloom in warm lakes impacted by human development like agriculture, blooms are increasingly reported in cooler waters with limited development in the surrounding watershed. As much of cyanoHAB research has focused on lakes in highly developed watersheds, the understanding of factors leading to cyanobacteria dominance and blooms in the absence of major development remains limited. Mountain lakes can serve as ideal systems to study bloom-forming cyanobacteria in watersheds with minimal development. In addition, mountain lakes …

Examining Factors Impacting The Service Needs Of Unhoused Women, Holly Brott

Dissertations and Theses

Women account for a sizeable proportion of the unhoused population in the U.S. Over one-third (38.7%) of unhoused individuals are women, which is a 17% increase from 2016 (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2019). The increased prevalence of women experiencing homelessness calls for a renewed examination of their service needs. This dissertation presents three studies examining factors impacting the service needs of unhoused women. The first manuscript examined factors contributing to unhoused mothers’ successful completion of transitional housing; highlighted participant-identified programmatic strengths; and investigated differences in facilitators to success across two geographic contexts: one rural and one …

Modeling Of Signals And Spectra: 5g And Beyond, Xianzhen Yang

Dissertations and Theses

The collection of papers addresses various aspects of spectra and signals in RF wireless systems for 5G and beyond. The first paper focuses on the nonlinear effects of amplified dual-band OFDM signals, providing a spectrum model for intermodulation and cross-modulation. The second paper extends this analysis beyond bandwidth restrictions, enabling accurate prediction of amplified dual-band spectrum. The third paper emphasizes the significance of out-of-band intermodulation products and derives an analytical expression using third-order intercept points. The fourth paper presents a unified spectrum expression for OFDM, FBMC, and F-OFDM, facilitating comparative insights into these signals. The fifth paper explores second-order intermodulation …

Tell Me, Do You Feel It Too? A Meta-Analysis Of Dyadic Emotional Contagion In The Workplace, Stefanie Fox

Dissertations and Theses

Emotional contagion influences multiple important individual and organizational outcomes, including burnout, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors, and task performance. The current meta-analytic review utilizes Barsade and colleagues' model of emotional contagion in organizational life and Van Kleef's emotions as social information model, creating a theoretically and empirically based examination of emotional contagion in organizational dyads covering the past 30 years of research. It offers nuance to traditional positive and negative affect conceptualization by utilizing Van Kleef's four social emotion categories (i.e., affiliation, appeasement, dominance, supplication) along with general positive and negative valanced emotional expressions as antecedents of emotional contagion. Using …

Beyond First Thoughts: Understanding The Essence Of Equitable Decision-Making, A Phenomenological Study, White Practitioners As Equitable Educational Decision-Makers, Zinnia Un

Dissertations and Theses

This interpretive phenomenological study aims to understand the lived experience of White educational decision-makers (EDMs) as they make equitable decisions for racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse (RCLD) students. Six decades after the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, the landscape of American education changed. Many scholars theorized the impact of colorblindness in decision-making and the connection to disproportionate outcomes for RCLD students.

The Student Success Act (2019) brings an additional $1 billion in investment to schools in Oregon annually. This allocation of school resources required an initial and ongoing community engagement process to ensure funding supports well-rounded education …

The Double Dutch Retention Framework: A Grounded Theory Study On Increasing Racial Staff Diversity At Pacific Northwest Community Colleges, Dominique S. Austin

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the troubling underrepresentation of staff of color in Pacific Northwest community colleges. Despite the proven benefits of racial staff diversity in promoting student success, community colleges face challenges in recruiting and retaining staff of color. Existing literature concerning non-teaching staff at community colleges is limited. This study adds to the existing literature by investigating the experiences and perceptions of staff of color in Pacific Northwest community colleges to identify effective strategies for increasing racial staff diversity.

This study used a constructivist grounded theory approach in a comprehensive data collection process involving surveys, individual and focus group interviews, …

Do Men Strategically Leverage Women's Intersecting Identities? Intersectional Symbolic Inclusion As An Electoral Competition Strategy In Polarized Turkey, Elif Sari Genc

Dissertations and Theses

Do party elites use intersectionality as an electoral competition strategy? In this dissertation, I study this question in the context of mayoral elections in Turkey by focusing on the competition between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the People's Republican Party (CHP). Examining the gender and religious orientation of candidates from these parties, local variations in party affiliations, and partisan polarization that is decisive in vote choice at the district level, I argue that the Islamist AKP strategically selects secular-appearing women to leverage their intersecting identities in races where secularist partisan polarization against this party is high.

Drawing on …

Electrochemical Hydrogen Gas Production And Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Via In Situ Formation Of Nickel (Ii) Tris-(Pyridinethiolate) Derivatives, Dayalis Sv. Brown

Dissertations and Theses

In the research presented, we use electrochemical techniques, such as cyclic voltammetry and controlled potential electrolysis, to study in situ formation of hydrogen evolution catalysts which also reduce carbon dioxide. Using pyridinethiol-based ligands and a nickel (II) precursor, both homo- and heteroleptic complexes were investigated as catalysts to produce alternative fuels while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Existing synthetic procedures to obtain these Ni(II) catalysts lead to low yields of the complexes and difficulties in crystallizing samples for further analysis, limiting sample size and restricting the number of studies. While current research is heavily focused on photochemically-driven experiments, given that solar …

The Greeley Variations, Mary Haidri

Dissertations and Theses

Inspired by the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, European snake folklore, and "wished-for child" fairy tales, The Greeley Variations features several generations of women and the Victorian house they live in. The novel explores prospective parenthood, maternal legacy, and repeated patterns (visual, genetic, and psychological) as haunting experiences.

How Unequal Access To Personal And Professional Networks Impacts Success Among Construction Apprentices, Cameron Elliot Arnold

Dissertations and Theses

The construction industry is still primarily white male dominated, and while there is significant research on gendered experiences in the trades, there is not research on experiences and attitudes towards support that occurs outside of the trades across gender and other intersectional identities. My study aims to start filling the gap and answer the questions: How does access to personal and professional networks impact success among Oregon apprentices? How is access to and attitudes towards receiving support impacted by gender and race? To answer these questions this study uses qualitative interviews of Oregon apprentices who completed or terminated in 2018-2019. …

Understanding Veteran Perceptions About Mental Health And Its Treatment, Quinn Turner Stoddard

Dissertations and Theses

Mental health illnesses are a growing issue for a large part of the country, and veterans in particular are vulnerable to the numerous negative effects they pose. Despite the high number of people that may benefit from treatment, a variety of issues with trust, stigma, and attitudes may act as barriers to care utilization. In response, this study investigated the perceptions that veterans within the Pacific Northwest hold in regards to mental health treatment as well as their intentions to seek it out should they require it. Using the integrated model of behavioral prediction (IMBP), data was gathered about veterans’ …

The Impact Of Climate Change On Selected Pnw Watersheds Through The Lens Of Western Red Cedar Habitat, Jordan T. Hamann

Dissertations and Theses

Climate change is a real phenomenon that is exacerbating existing natural processes and developing into a new normal for the planet. This change may be devastating for Pacific Northwest populations of Western Red Cedar (WRC) west of the Cascade Mountain range in the states of Oregon and Washington. WRC is a valuable tree species for reasons both economic and cultural. Dieback among WRC is following an accelerating trend. Since dieback is usually followed by tree mortality, understanding its causes and distribution is beneficial to the overall success of the species going into the future.

Through the use of ESRI's ArcGIS …

Communion Anthropoid, Joshua Stanek

Dissertations and Theses

In National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation, a man of good will offers all he has to a dear brother-in-law--recognizing the snakes he keeps as toys, the camper, the stones, dirt, and arid shrubbery are likewise dear to him. They go out to the desert at night and dig shallow holes, seemingly at random. Their imprecision is surprisingly fruitful. Imagine the constellation they made for the stars. In Communion Anthropoid, I am digging shallow holes in the dark with a mind to unearth what I believe I have lost. The dearness, I suppose. These poems vary in form from eight …

Confronting Web3 Technology: Opportunities, Challenges And Community Formation, Christopher-John Rogers

Dissertations and Theses

The emergence of blockchain technology created an entire industry of innovative new digital assets--or tokens--and diverse new fields of expertise founded on ideological aspirations of a new World Wide Web that reimagines digital value transfer through decentralization and disintermediation. Experimentation in the so-called "Web3" industry produces rich new fields of ethnographic study revealing the experiences of diverse individuals navigating novel technological capabilities which give way to new avenues of identity formation, community building, and ecosystem creation. These exciting new endeavors come with difficult challenges threatening the realization of ambitious visions for digital futures. Ethnographic research conducted through discourse analysis, participant …

Collaborative Action In Informal Social Networks Of Wildfire Managers In Northwestern Wyoming, Hannah Lynn Spencer

Dissertations and Theses

Wildfire is a cross-boundary, collective action issue. Previous research has demonstrated the importance of collaborative relationships in wildfire for purposes such as increasing capacity, trading information, and facilitating landscape-scale mitigation projects. However, a stakeholder's location in social networks, as well as personal factors, may impact their collaboration. Furthermore, stakeholders must prioritize their own organizational goals and responsibilities, which may differ from those of their collaborators. I used interview and survey methods to investigate these questions in the context of wildfire management professionals in northwestern Wyoming. For the interviews, I selected 12 individuals with high betweenness centrality who were involved in …

Developing Public Service Leadership: Understanding The Field Immersion/Comparative Cases Model For Mid-Career Professional Education In Environment And Natural Resources Leadership, Erin M. Steinkruger

Dissertations and Theses

Public administrators in the United States face increasingly complex challenges and are called to leadership by position and in practice. In a hyper-pluralistic society, individuals must lead from where they sit, arbitrating value differences in day-to-day functions and taking on adversity and uncertainty in pursuit of the public good. These individuals are served by a variety of leadership training programs both internal and external to their organizations. This study characterizes the field immersion/comparative cases (FICC) model for public service leadership development and uses a grounded theory approach to build understanding about how individuals learn about leadership; what learning outcomes emerge …

Radical Urban Natures: Mitigating Urban Heat With Nature-Based Techniques In Portland, Oregon, Heather Day-Melgar

Dissertations and Theses

Anthropogenic rising heat associated with climatic changes in the built environment has become a serious global issue. The built environment is often comprised of impermeable, paved surfaces, lack of vegetation to make way for development, tree removal, and loss or alteration of urban waterways, which leads to a degraded ecosystem for humans and non-human life, and less of an ability for carbon capture, all of which contribute to higher urban temperatures. This alteration of the existing natural environment leads to populations often unable to conceptualize that a built environment is still an ecosystem, and restoration is possible and necessary for …

Spatial Variations In Ancient Meteoric Water: An Investigation Of The Rattlesnake Tuff, Julian Michael Cohen

Dissertations and Theses

Volcanic glass has been used extensively as a paleoclimate proxy. Deuterium (²H) concentrations in glass have been found to be stable over geologic timescales, making δD a reliable proxy for ancient water chemistry. However, continued work revolves around better understanding how different factors affect preserved water in ash. Here, I analyze δD in the Rattlesnake Tuff (RST), a widespread ca. 7 Ma ashflow tuff, and create an isoscape to assess variations in δD across Oregon during that time. Additionally, I examine compositional data from glass shards to explore the relationship between δD and shard composition. The RST exhibits …

Disentangling Groundwater Dynamics At Oregon's Mckenzie River Headwaters, Taylor Nicole Salazar

Dissertations and Theses

Widespread mountain snowpack declines have been occurring across the western United States over the last century, and are increasing in duration and severity, with several record-breaking low-snowpack years in the last decade. In the Pacific Northwest, summer streamflow is largely a result of melting snow and groundwater discharge, as summers are typically dry and warm in this Mediterranean bioclimate, thus making spring-fed rivers critical for regional water resources. However, current trends and predictions in hydroclimate modeling indicate spring-fed rivers will experience reduced summer discharge driven by the increasingly larger impact of anthropogenic climate change (warming) on (decreased) mountain snowpack. A …

A Daily Investigation Of The Recovery Paradox: Examining The Dynamic Interplay Of Workload, Recovery Experiences, And Microbreaks, Morgan Rose Taylor

Dissertations and Theses

Research has highlighted the importance of recovery from work stress during non-work time for employee health and wellbeing. Building on the recovery from work stress literature, this study examines the recovery paradox which suggests that employees may recover from work demands the least when they need it the most. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to shed light on the mechanisms underlying the recovery paradox. Specifically, this study examined whether a common work stressor, workload in the morning, is indirectly related to poorer recovery experiences in the evening through negative states at the end of workday. Furthermore, this study …

Mechanisms Of Fibrillar Aggregation Of The Lens Small Heat Shock Proteins, Αa- And Αb-Crystallin, Russell James Mcfarland

Dissertations and Theses

The protein αB-crystallin represents the archetypical small heat-shock protein (sHSP), and together with αA-crystallin makes up the primary chaperone system in the eye lens, where they play a critical role in maintaining proteostasis. To achieve transparency, the lens undergoes a loss of organelles and both protein turnover halts, requiring that proteins remain functional for long periods of time as they accumulate chemical damage. The α-crystallins are highly abundant in the lens to stabilize proteostasis for multiple decades. Over time though, the small heat-shock proteins become overwhelmed by a high burden of destabilized clients and their own accumulated chemical damage. Mechanistic …