Digital Commons Network^™

The Imago Mundi Of Honorius Augustodunensis, Nicholas Ryan Foster

Dissertations and Theses

In the past historians have used the works of Honorius Augustodunensis to answer the question of who he was. In doing this the intellectual importance of his work has often been overlooked. Honorius was one of the most popular writers of the early twelfth century, and his most popular work was the Imago Mundi. The purpose of this study is to examine the work and its historical context and to furnish an English translation of the complete text. The present work looks at each book of the Imago Mundi and its sources to develop a concept of Honorius' writing style …

"Whose Streets? Our Streets!" Urban Social Movements And The Transformation Of Everyday Life In Pacific Northwest Cities, 1990-1999, Leanne Claire Serbulo

Dissertations and Theses

This project returns to the questions that were once at the center of the urban studies debate over social movements. What are urban social movements, and what impacts do they leave on the cities where they occur? Urban protests in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington are used as the foundation for exploring the following research questions: What urban social movements occurred in the Pacific Northwest during 1990s? What goals were these movements struggling for? What impacts did urban social movements have on daily life in Portland and Seattle?

While this project has continuity with earlier attempts to identify, describe, and …

Bonneville Power Administration And The Creation Of The Pacific Intertie, 1958 -1964, Joshua D. Binus

Dissertations and Theses

Construction of the Pacific Northwest-Pacific Southwest Intertie (also known as the Pacific Intertie) began in 1964, following the culmination of a series of interrelated negotiations which included: 1) the planning for the construction and operation of the Pacific Intertie; 2) the passage of federal legislation that put limits on the export of electricity from the regions where it was generated; and 3) the full ratification of the Columbia River Treaty between the United States and Canada. By 1970, with construction complete, the Pacific Intertie allowed for the movement of more than 4,000,000 kilowatts of power among the electrical systems of …

Giving Process Its Due : Can Collaboration Help Environmental Markets Succeed?, John Robert Cochran

Dissertations and Theses

Emerging environmental markets assign economic value to ecosystem services and exchange them in market-like transactions. These markets are characterized by diverse stakeholder interests interacting with minimally defined transaction steps and high uncertainty. In this context, process plays an important role in shaping the institutions that make markets work or fail. If process matters, then market organizers need to intentionally craft processes just as they intentionally design institutions. This project explores a subset of four relatively established water quality trading programs that involved diverse stakeholders, and used differing forms of collaboration to design institutions. This research tests whether sometimes subtle changes …

The Effects Of Climate Change And Urbanization On The Runoff Of The Rock Creek Basin, Jon J. Franczyk

Dissertations and Theses

Climate changes brought on by global warming are expected to have a significant affect on the Pacific Northwest hydrology during the 21^st Century. Current research anticipates higher mean annual temperatures and an intensification of the hydrological cycle. This is of particular concern for highly urbanized basins, which are considered more vulnerable to changes in climate. Because the majority of previous studies have addressed the influences of either climate or urban land cover changes on runoff, there is a lack of research investigating the combined effect of these factors. The Rock Creek basin (RCB), located in the Portland, OR, metropolitan …

Quantifying Twentieth Century Glacier Change In The Sierra Nevada, California, Hassan J. Basagic

Dissertations and Theses

Numerous small alpine glaciers occupy the high elevation regions of the central and southern Siena Nevada, California. These glaciers change size in response to variations in climate and are therefore important indicators of climate change. An inventory based on USGS topographic maps (l :24,000) revealed 1719 glaciers and perennial snow and ice features for a total area of 39.l5 ±7.52 km². The number of 'true' glaciers, versus non-moving ice, is estimated to be 118, covering 15.87 ± 1.69 Km². All glaciers were located on north to northeast aspects, at elevations >3000 m. Historical photographs, geologic evidence, …

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. …

"Questions About Stuff You Don't Normally See On A Map:" A Study Of Sixth-Graders' Abilities To Understand Quantitative Thematic Maps, Stephanie Lynn Gaspers

Dissertations and Theses

Middle school students work with many types of maps in school, however most maps they use are qualitative thematic maps that only show differences in kind as compared to quantitative thematic maps that show differences in amounts. This thesis investigates sixth-grade students' abilities to analyze three types of thematic maps: dot maps, choropleth maps, and graduated circle maps. Two hundred and two Oregon sixth-graders were tested on their abilities to interpret map symbology, make inferences from the data, categorize values into regions, and ask geographic questions concerning data distributions. The results indicate that students can understand these three quantitative thematic …

Information Technology Training In The Public Sector : Essential Planning Elements, Betty Jean Reynolds

Dissertations and Theses

Information technology (IT) has revolutionized the workplace and the provision of government services, and rapidity of change makes IT training essential. Planning, however, can be haphazard, and public sector training might not fulfill training needs. Elements that are essential to planning for the success of IT training in the public sector were identified from the literature: IT training organization structure/training provider, methods of IT training delivery, assessment of IT training needs, IT training expenditures, specific IT training needs, and strategies for improving IT training.

IT directors of Oregon state agencies and chief information officers (CIOs) of exemplar states were surveyed …

Spatial And Morphological Change Of Eliot Glacier, Mount Hood, Oregon, Keith Michael Jackson

Dissertations and Theses

Eliot Glacier is a small (1.6 km²), relatively well-studied glacier on Mount Hood, Oregon. Since 1901, glacier area decreased from 2.03 ± 0.16 km² to 1.64 ± 0.05 km² by 2004, a loss of 19%, and the terminus retreated about 600 m. Mount Hood's glaciers as a whole have lost 34% of their area. During the first part of the 20th century the glacier thinned and retreated, then thickened and advanced between the 1940s and 1960s because of cooler temperatures and increased winter precipitation and has since accelerated its retreat, averaging about 1.0 m a^{-1 …}

Children’S Perceptions Of The Learning Environment And Aesthetic Qualities Within Their Classroom, Sheryl Reinisch

Dissertations and Theses

Primary grade children spend considerable time in elementary school classrooms. The learning environment can play a powerful role in the physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development of a child (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). The aesthetic dimension is particularly intriguing. Studies positively link the condition of schools to student achievement and behavior (Earthman, Cash, & Van Berkum, 1995; Yarbrough, 2001). Educational literature often addresses the topic of learning environments; however, a key ingredient seems to be missing, the voices of children. If children are spending so much time in these settings, what do they notice? This study addresses the fundamental …

Once Upon The North Pole, Regina Anne Roselli

Dissertations and Theses

The North Pole can be imagined in two ways. The first, the Magnetic North Pole, is based on the Earth's magnetic field, which is in constant flux. It is a general area of the Arctic that isn't affixed to a specific geographic location but moves to where the lines of magnetic force enter and exit the earth vertically. The second, the true North Pole, refers to its actual physical and fixed geographic location, 90° N. It lays below miles of the Arctic Ocean's water, hundreds of miles from the nearest land.

The North Pole has fueled man's imagination for centuries. …

The Ends And Means Of Public Art Making: A Case Study Of "Public Art" And "Art In Public" In The Portland, Oregon Metropolitan Region, Svetlana Gennadyevna Karasyova

Dissertations and Theses

The subject of public art has been prolifically but narrowly discussed in conjunction with controversies over particular public artworks. To investigate more broadly the complex aesthetic, institutional, social and political dimensions of public art, I examine a pluralistic landscape comprising nine arts organizations in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan region. A neo-Marxist framework defined by David Harvey organizes the case findings into four topics: material practices or public art outcomes; beliefs, values and desires; institutions and their rituals; and power and social relations.

I capture the differences among the arts organizations by portraying them as metaphorically inhabiting unique spaces in the …

Regeneration Patterns And Facilitation Following Blowdown In A Self- Replacing Lodgepole Pine (Pinus Contorta) Stand In Central Oregon, Jennifer Michelle Karps

Dissertations and Theses

Nurse plant and object facilitation is an important factor mitigating abiotic stress, improving seedling recruitment, and shaping the fine-scale spatial patterns of many plant communities. I investigate the role of facilitation on lodgepole pine regeneration following blowdown in central Oregon. My objective is to examine the importance of nurse objects on seedling recruitment under varying stand conditions. I base my analysis on 1) the mapped locations and attributes of seedlings, saplings, trees, shrubs, snags, stumps, and sound and decomposed logs in each of five, 500 m² circular plots, 2) water holding capacity estimates of woody and leafy litter and …

Deer-Vehicle Accident Hotspots In Northwest Clackamas County, Oregon, Linda K. Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

Road-kill of wildlife is common on Portland, Oregon's suburban fringe where development has increased road densities and traffic volume in rural areas. I identify the spatial and temporal patterns of black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) deer-vehicle accidents (DVA) at the suburban/rural interface of developing northwest Clackamas County using deer carcass pickup reports for county maintained roads for 1997-2004 and Oregon Department of Transportation deer-vehicle accident reports for 1996-2004. No black-tailed deer DVA models exist in the literature.

DVA increased 121% from 1997 to 1999 followed by a 26% decline by 2004. The initial DVA increase appears related to …

Addressing Cheating And Workload Characterization In Online Games, Christopher Chambers

Dissertations and Theses

The Internet has enabled the popular pastime of playing video games to grow rapidly by connecting game players in disparate locations. However, with popularity have come the two challenges of hosting a large number of users and detecting cheating among users. For reasons of control, security, and ease of development, the most popular system for hosting on-line games is the client server architecture. This is also the most expensive and least scalable architecture for the game publisher, which drives hosting costs upwards with the success of the game. In addition to the expense of hosting, as a particular game grows …

Lives, Livelihoods, And Landscapes: A Study Of Land Use And Social Change In Northeastern Nepal, Jennifer Leigh Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the forces of change in lives and landscapes that have altered the Lamosangu-to-Everest route in northeastern Nepal and shows how a transect in photographs and conversations across the east-central Himalaya allows us insight and a greater understanding into the processes and consequences of this change.

Three forces of change over the last twenty-five years dominated discussions with local informants: the rise of the "People's War"-Nepal's Maoist Insurgency beginning in 1996; the Democratic Revolution of 1990; and dependence on tourism for livelihood after the establishment of Sagarmatha National Park in 1976. Understanding the cultural-historical context for these forces …

Comparison Of The Variation Between Asce Penman-Monteith Reference Evapotranspiration And Potential Evaporation In Oregon, Chad M. Cary

Dissertations and Theses

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important input in terrestrial water balance equations used in modeling streamflow. Good ET estimates are critical to producing reasonable seasonal and annual streamflow predictions. Due to the lack of sufficient instruments to directly measure ET, researchers have developed numerous empirical equations that use climatic variables to estimate this element. Based on studies over the last 50 years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has standardized the calculation of evapotranspiration with the Penman-Monteith equation. Using the ASCE Penman-Monteith equation, this study compares reference ET (ET₀) estimates to potential evaporation (PE) generated from a study …

Oxygen Demand Trends, Land Cover Change, And Water Quality Management For An Urbanizing Oregon Watershed, Michael Karl Boeder

Dissertations and Theses

In-stream aquatic habitat depends on adequate levels of dissolved oxygen. Human alteration of the landscape has an extensive influence on the biogeochemical processes that drive oxygen cycling in streams. Historic datasets allow researchers to track trends in chemical parameters concomitant with urbanization, while land cover change analysis allows researchers to identify linkages between water quality trends and landscape change.

Using the Seasonal Kendall's test, I examined water quality trends in oxygen demand variables during the mid-1990s to 2003, for twelve sites in the Rock Creek sub-watershed of the Tualatin River, northwest Oregon. Significant trends occurred in each parameter. Dissolved oxygen …

Sluice Boxes On The Shores: An Environmental History Of Gold Mining On Oregon's South Coast, Tania Louise Hyatt-Evenson

Dissertations and Theses

Environmental historians have researched, analyzed, and concluded that gold mining significantly altered the environment in Southern Oregon. Environmental case studies have examined mining's impact on the watersheds in the Rogue Valley, but none have analyzed the effect gold miners had on the Southern Oregon coast. While gold mining occurred on the South Coast from the 1850s to the 1940s, on a smaller scale, the impact from environmental change is just as significant. The purpose of this study is to understand how mining changed the landscape of the South Coast, and how this change affected the human populations that lived in …

An Assessment Of The Impacts Of Climate Change On The Upper Clackamas River Basin With A Distributed Hydrologic Model, David Graves

Dissertations and Theses

The Pacific Northwest is dependent on seasonal snowmelt for water resources that support a significant portion of its economy. Increased temperatures resulting from higher concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases may cause disruptions to these resources because of reductions in the annual snowpack and variations of the timing of snowmelt. This study reconstructs and applies a GIS-based distributed hydrologic model at a monthly scale to assess the effects of future climate change on runoff from the Upper Clackamas River Basin (located near Portland, Oregon). Historic flow data and snow measurements are used to calibrate and test the performance of the hydro …

Mathematics, Meaning, And Identity: A Study Of The Practice Of Mathematics Education In A Rural High School, Rick Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

The purposes of this study were (1) to explore the relationship between mathematics education and the rural context and (2) to determine the usefulness of a social theory of learning (Wenger, 1998) to account for students' participation in advanced high school mathematics courses. Qualitative methods were used to gather data in a small, rural high school in the Pacific Northwest. Data gathered included a student survey, interviews with students and mathematics teachers, observations in mathematics classes, and documents related to the curriculum, the school, and the community.

The findings suggest that high school mathematics education is related to the rural …

Ambivalent Landscapes: An Historical Geography Of Recreation And Tourism On Mount Hood, Oregon, Ryan Franklin Mitchell

Dissertations and Theses

Mount Hood is an Oregon icon. The mountain has as long and rich a history of recreation and tourism as almost any other place in the American West. But contemporary landscapes on Mount Hood reveal a recreation and tourism industry that has struggled to assert itself, and a distinct geographic divide is evident in the manner in which tourism has been developed. Why? In this study I chronicle the historical geography of recreation and tourism on Mount Hood. I examine the evolution of its character and pattern, and the ways in which various communities have used it to invest meaning …

Fuel Model Development And Fire Simulation Analysis In The Wildland-Urban Interface: The Case Of Forest Park, Portland, Oregon, David Malcolm Kuhn

Dissertations and Theses

Forest Park, a 5,000 acre heavily-forested park within the city limits of Portland, Oregon was selected as the study area for performing a fire simulation analysis. A well-documented fire swept over a large area of the park in 1951, and provides both direct inputs, including the ignition point, and context for the present day fire simulations. The goal of the research was two fold. First, determine the difference between small area simulations using standard and custom surface fuel models. Second, determine if fire simulation can be an effective tool in assessing fire danger and behavior in a wildland-urban interface environment …

Visualizing Complexity : A Spatial Analysis Of Decorative Geometric Pattern In The Islamic World, 900-1400 Ad, Tracy Elizabeth Harrison

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores how the use of complex decorative geometric patterns in Islamic architecture spatially relates to advances in the fields of science and philosophy in the Islamic world between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. This project examines hypotheses developed by vario~s scholars on the forces that shaped the use of these patterns (known as the geometric mode) in Islamic architecture. The prevailing assumption that advances in mathematics contributed to the use of the geometric mode is used as a starting point for subsequent analysis.

For this study, two spatial databases were created. One contains over two hundred and twenty …

Forest Resource Use, Land-Use, And Ecotourism In The RíO PláTano Biosphere Reserve, Honduras, Christina Marie Friedle

Dissertations and Theses

The Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, a tropical rainforest reserve in the northeastern corner of Honduras, is home to several subsistence-based indigenous groups, including the Miskito, Pech and Garifuna, as well as the non-indigenous Ladinos. Communities within the reserve depend on forest resources, swidden agriculture, marine resources and/or small-scale ranching as the foundations for local economies. Regulations placed on these subsistence practices, after establishment of the biosphere reserve in 1980, have created unique and new pressures and resulted in a blend of traditional and innovative resource use. A notable result is the promotion of ecotourism as a solution for meeting the …

Re-Imaging A Neighborhood : The Creation Of The Alberta Arts District, Portland, Oregon, Meredith R. Rizzari

Dissertations and Theses

Art is often used as a catalyst to stimulate redevelopment and neighborhood change. This often occurs inadvertently as the presence of artists in certain communities can attract both public and private investment to revalorize economically depressed areas. Marginal neighborhoods in inner-urban areas offer inspiration and diversity to artists seeking lower-cost housing. Their presence effectively makes these marginal communities "safe" for middle-class residents looking to live in a funky, urban neighborhood. Ultimately, however, artists are eventually priced out of the communities they helped to create.

The Alberta district in northeast Portland, Oregon has used art to create an identity that distinguished …

"Alberta Arts District" : Boundaries And Belonging Among Long-Time Residents In A Culturally Changing Neighborhood, Sammy Shaw

Dissertations and Theses

This study takes a cultural perspective in studying the "Alberta Arts District," a gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland in which bohemian cultural production/consumption has become the dominant and commodified vision of the community. Survey data demonstrates residents' general opinions and levels of participation in the changing neighborhood. Forty long-time residents, black and white, homeowners and renters, are interviewed in-depth regarding their perceptions of change. Long-time residents of gentrifying neighborhoods are often overlooked as a less powerful group that only has to negotiate rising rents and property values. This study approaches the meaning of neighborhood changes for long-time residents who have …

Risk Factors For Pre-Post Monsoon Cholera Epidemics In Bangladesh From 1992-1994, Rhonda Rae Robb

Dissertations and Theses

The primary objective of this thesis is to differentiate between the risk factors for pre-and post-monsoon cholera epidemics in rural Bangladesh by analyzing the complex interaction between select environmental, cultural/behavioral, and socioeconomic variables over space and time. In rural Bangladesh, cholera epidemics correspond with the annual monsoon: the first, and smallest, occurs between March and June, while the larger cholera peak occurs between September and December. The differences between the spatial and temporal patterns of seasonal cholera are analyzed, and the risk factors are calculated for pre-and post-monsoon cholera epidemics.

The theoretical approach that underlies this medical geographical study is …

Comparing Twenty-Four Years Of Forest Change In Two Communities Of Mexico's Meseta PuréPecha Using Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagery, Kevin Scott Martin

Dissertations and Theses

The Meseta Purépecha, a volcanic plateau in the Mexican state of Michoacan, is home to one of the most species-rich pine forests in the world. Recent increases in demand for forest products has put added pressure on these resources. Though existing research has suggested significant deforestation in the Meseta, there is little information identifying specific areas of decline. This study focuses on two indigenous communities in the Meseta--Pichátaro and Sevina. Both communities have long relied on wood as an economic resource. However, the two communities have reacted differently to increased demand for forest resources. The purpose of this study is …