Digital Commons Network^™

The Influence Of Ambient Temperature On Green Roof R-Values, Bryce Kevin Cox

Dissertations and Theses

Green roofs can be an effective and appealing way to increase the energy efficiency of buildings by providing active insulation. As plants in the green roof transpire, there is a reduction in heat flux that is conducted through the green roof. The R-value, or thermal resistance, of a green roof is an effective measurement of thermal performance because it can be easily included in building energy calculations applicable to many different buildings and situations. The purpose of this study was to determine if an increase in ambient temperature would cause an increase in the R-value of green roofs. Test trays …

Erasing The Space Between Japanese And American: Progressivism, Nationalism, And Japanese American Resettlement In Portland, Oregon, 1945-1948, Robert Alan Hegwood

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the return of Japanese Americans to Portland, Oregon, following their mass incarceration by the United States Federal government between 1942 and 1945. This essay examines the motivations of both returning Japanese Americans and various groups within the white community with equal focus in the hopes of writing a history that provides agency to both groups. The return of Japanese Americans to Portland was an event with broader implications than a mere chapter in the history of Japanese Americans. The rise of the Japanese Exclusion League and other groups interested in preventing the return of Japanese Americans to …

Diminished Democracy? Portland Radio News/Public Affairs After The Telecom Act Of 1996, Rebecca Webb

Dissertations and Theses

News and public affairs on commercial radio dramatically changed following the 1996 Telecom Act, with rapid consolidation and economic efficiencies radically shrinking commercial radio's role in the provision of political information. By examining jobs data, public files, and the views of broadcast journalists, this project assesses the Act's impact through the lens of civic-minded Portland, Oregon. Because political information enables democracy, and because of radio's uniquely accessible qualities, this paper argues that market emphasis in media policy--especially in the Act's absolute manifestation--has diminished a significant channel of public discourse. Noticing radio's democratic potential, still relevant in the digital age, this …

Cultivating Environmental Stewardship In Middle School Students, Kelly Anne Fischer

Dissertations and Theses

Environmental stewardship is an important attribute for students and populations of all ages to have. This study looked at the effect of middle school students of a teacher who participated in a summer field ecology training program taking part in a long-term ecology project, and the impact of the experience on their environmental stewardship attitude. A variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to look at changes in students' environmental stewardship attitudes including: surveying in a pre/post format, teacher, parent, and student focus groups, and teacher interviews. The teacher's experience with the summer field ecology training provided a foundation …

An Action Research Study To Determine The Feasibility Of Using Concept Maps As Alternative Assessments By A Novice Teacher, Nancy Smith Mitchell

Dissertations and Theses

This action research study investigated the feasibility of a novice teacher using concept maps as assessments in secondary science classes. The subjects in this study were the researcher, a novice pre-service science teacher, and students (n=35) in two classes of mixed-grade Foundations in Physics and Chemistry. This study tracked student and teacher experiences over an instructional unit in astronomy. All students received a 50-minute lesson on concept mapping, one class received three additional concept mapping lessons during the unit, then all students took a unit test with a paired short answer and concept map question. Student surveys were conducted to …

The Realization Of The Cathlapotle Plankhouse: Reflections On Cross-Cultural Collaboration In The Post-Nagpra Era, Erica Lynn Boyne

Dissertations and Theses

In the last two decades, a shift in the museological paradigm has changed the way in which Native American history and culture is interpreted and represented to the general public. As legal mandates and growing institutional pressures increasingly call for the integration of tribal representatives into the decision-making bodies of museums and authoritative institutions, cross-cultural collaboration and partnerships have increased significantly. With little precedent guiding public historians and museum professionals through this new and complex system of collaboration, the path unfolding in the journey towards the “indigenization”; of museums has been marked with achievements and challenges that have both taught …

The Law And Politics Of Embryo Research In America, O. Carter Snead

Journal Articles

The moral, legal, and public policy dispute over embryonic stem cell research (and related matters, such as human cloning) is the most prominent issue in American public bioethics of the past decade. The primary moral question raised by the practice of embryonic stem cell research is whether it is defensible to disaggregate (and thus destroy) living human embryos in order to derive pluripotent cells (stem cells) for purposes of basic research that may someday yield regenerative therapies. This essay will explain the legal and political dimensions of the embryonic stem cell debate as it has unfolded at the national level …

Jacques Maritain, Man And The State (1951), Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

From the Article

Jacques Maritain was one of the twentieth century’s most important and influential Christian philosophers and political thinkers. That said, his work, thought, and aspirations were not limited by the boundaries of any particular academic disciplines or traditions. His was, as Professor Brennan has observed, a “quest to understand the whole of reality, created and redeemed.” A great scholar of the medieval accomplishments of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, Maritain’s distinctive Christian Humanism shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Second Vatican Council, and the writing of the late Pope John Paul II.

Effects Of Lateral Ligament Sectioning On The Stability Of The Ankle And Subtalar Joint, Stacie I. Ringleb, Ajaya Dhakal, Claude D. Anderson, Sebastian Bawab, Rajesh Paranjape

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Patients with subtalar joint instability are often diagnosed with ankle instability. Only after a prolonged period of time in which a patient does not improve after treatment for ankle instability is subtalar joint instability considered. To develop a clinically relevant method to diagnose subtalar joint instability, the kinematics of the simulated unstable subtalar joint were examined. A 6 degree-of-freedom positioning and loading device was developed. Plantarflexion/dorsiflexion, inversion/eversion, and internal/external rotation were applied individually or as coupled motions along with an anterior/posterior drawer. Kinematic data were collected from sensors attached to the calcaneus, talus, and tibia by keeping all the ligaments …

Myths Of Coal's Clean Future: The Story Of Methylmercury, Jonathan Skinner-Thompson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Scall Profile: Judy K. Davis, Karen Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

Structure And/Or Culture, Daria Roithmayr

Publications

No abstract provided.

Excluding Unemployed Workers From Job Opportunities: Why Disparate Impact Protections Still Matter, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights And Systemic Wrongs, Melissa Hart

Publications

Systemic employment discrimination is a structural, social harm whose victims include not only those who can be specifically identified, but also many who cannot. Pattern and practice claims in employment litigation are an essential tool for challenging this structural harm. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court's decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes brushes aside the systemic nature of the plaintiffs' claims, making both theoretical and doctrinal mistakes in its application of the procedural and substantive law applicable in employment discrimination class action litigation. The most troubling part of the Court's opinion--its rejection of statistical modeling for remedial determinations--has received little attention. This article …

Credit Derivatives, Leverage, And Financial Regulation's Missing Macroeconomic Dimension, Erik F. Gerding

Publications

Of all OTC derivatives, credit derivatives pose particular concerns because of their ability to generate leverage that can increase liquidity - or the effective money supply - throughout the financial system. Credit derivatives and the leverage they create thus do much more than increase the fragility of financial institutions and increase counterparty risk. By increasing leverage and liquidity, credit derivatives can fuel rises in asset prices and even asset price bubbles. Rising asset prices can then mask mistakes in the pricing of credit derivatives and in assessments of overall leverage in the financial system. Furthermore, the use of credit derivatives …

The Overhyped Path From Tinker To Morse: How The Student Speech Cases Show The Limits Of Supreme Court Decisions--For The Law And For The Litigants, Scott A. Moss

Publications

Each of the Supreme Court's high school student speech cases reflected the social angst of its era. In 1965's Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, three Iowa teens broke school rules to wear armbands protesting the Vietnam War. In 1983, amidst parental and political upset about youth exposure to sexuality in the media, Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier allowed the censorship of an innuendo-filled student government speech and a school newspaper article on teen pregnancy and parental divorce. In 2007, Morse v. Frederick paralleled the rise of reality television …

Wilkes V. Springside Nursing Home, Inc.: A Historical Perspective, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Diva Defends Herself: Gender And Domestic Violence In An Early Twentieth-Century Headline Trial, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

This short article was presented as part of a symposium on headline criminal trials, organized by St. Louis University School of Law in honor of Lawrence Friedman. It describes and analyzes the self-defense acquittal of opera singer Mae Talbot in Nevada in 1910 on charges of murdering her abusive husband. Based on extensive research into archival trial records and newspaper reports, the article discusses how the press, the court, and trial lawyers on both sides depicted the killing and Mae’s possible defenses. Without discounting the sensationalism and entertainment value, to a scandal-hungry public, of stories about violent marriages, I contend …

Industrial Terrorism And The Unmaking Of New Deal Labor Law, Ahmed A. White

Publications

The passage of the Wagner (National Labor Relations) Act of 1935 represented an unprecedented effort to guarantee American workers basic labor rights--the rights to organize unions, to provoke meaningful collective bargaining, and to strike. Previous attempts by workers and government administrators to realize these rights in the workplace met with extraordinary, often violent, resistance from powerful industrial employers, whose repressive measures were described by government officials as a system of "industrial terrorism." Although labor scholars have acknowledged these practices and paid some attention to the way they initially frustrated labor rights and influenced the jurisprudence and politics of labor relations …

Campaign Speech Law With A Twist: When The Government Is The Speaker, Not The Regulator, Helen Norton

Publications

Although government entities frequently engage in issue-related campaign speech on a variety of contested ballot and legislative measures, this fact has been entirely overlooked in contemporary First Amendment debates over campaign speech law specifically and government speech more generally. The Supreme Court's "campaign speech" and "government speech" dockets have focused to date on claims by private parties that the government has restricted or silenced their speech in violation of the First Amendment. In contrast, disputes over what this Article calls "governmental campaign speech" involve Free Speech Clause and other challenges by private parties who seek instead to silence the government's …

Innovation, Entrepreneurship, And The Information Age, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

This Essay makes the case for antitrust enforcement as a critical part of innovation policy and catalyzing entrepreneurship. It begins by explaining how innovation and entrepreneurship are drivers of economic growth and pillars of any effective economic strategy. With respect to antitrust enforcement and competition policy, it highlights the role that antitrust can play in opening up markets and addressing bottleneck monopolies, such as those at issue in the Microsoft and AT&T cases. It also explains that the most nettlesome challenge of such enforcement is devising appropriate and effective remedies, suggesting a few strategies to address that challenge.

Consumer Contract Exchanges And The Problem Of Adhesion, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

Businesses and sophisticated parties have long used "contract exchanges," like the Chicago Board of Trade, to obtain a fair price and protect themselves from market volatility. These contract exchanges have greatly benefited both their participants and the public at large, but participation was long limited to a wealthy few. A decade ago, however, Internet websites, including Hotwire and Priceline, brought the power of contract exchanges directly to consumers, allowing regular people to flex their collective bargaining power to obtain low prices on travel services. Even more recently, other such "consumer contract exchanges," including Prosper and MoneyAisle, have organized vibrant markets …

Floorplan Design And Yield Enhancement Of 3-D Integrated Circuits, Rajeev Kumar Nain

Dissertations and Theses

We have developed a placement-aware 3-D floorplanning algorithm that enables additional wirelength reduction by planning for 3-D placement of logic gates in selected circuit modules during the floorplanning stage. Thus it also bridges the existing gap between 3-D floorplanning and 3-D placement. To reduce the solution space of 3-D floorplanning which is known to be an NP-hard problem, we derive a set of feasibility conditions on the topological representation of a floorplan. In addition, we have designed a fast module packing algorithm that satisfies a set of constraints for placement-aware 3-D floorplanning. Furthermore, we have designed an efficient evolutionary algorithm …

On Constrained Optimization Schemes For Joint Inversion Of Geophysical Datasets, Uram Anibal Sosa Aguirre

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the area of geological sciences, there exist several experimental techniques used to advance in the understanding of the Earth. We implement a joint inversion least-squares (LSQ) algorithm to characterize one dimensional Earth's structure by using seismic shear wave velocities as a model parameter. We use two geophysical datasets sensitive to shear velocities, namely Receiver Function and Surface Wave dispersion velocity observations, with a choice of an optimization method: Truncated Singular Value Decomposition (TSVD) or Primal-Dual Interior-Point (PDIP). The TSVD and the PDIP methods solve a regularized unconstrained and a constrained minimization problem, respectively. Both techniques include bounds into the …

Municipal Water Consumption Patterns Of Halifax Nova Scotia Canada, Katherine Christenda White

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Water consumption patterns of Halifax will be analyzed using an error correction model. This analysis will utilize climatic, pricing and employment variables to determine the consumption patterns of Halifax Nova Scotia Canada. Policy implementation recommendation are made to provide rationale and aid in generating new policies and pricing scchemes.

Causes And Consequences Of Changes In Algal Community Structure Of Arctic Tundra Ponds From Barrow, Alaska, Mariana Vargas Medrano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Algal communities in the Arctic are highly sensitive to environmental change, such as longer growing seasons and changes in ice cover. On the north slope of Alaska, ponds and lakes cover large portions of the total land area. We surveyed the periphytic algal communities in tundra ponds from Barrow, Alaska to assess environmental effects on their populations. Samples were collected in August 2008-10 from two main study areas: the IBP (the International Biological Program), which was also studied in 1970-71 but now is located near to human settlements, and the BEO (Barrow Environmental Observatory), which is within a protected area. …

Implications Of Surface Runoff Recharge In Semi-Arid Regions On Groundwater Sustainability, Omar M. Al-Qudah

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Amargosa Desert, Nevada regional groundwater studies show that the surface runoff infiltration occurring in the arroyos following runoff producing storms, and this infiltration is considered to be a major source of groundwater recharge. Groundwater infiltration through alluvium was investigated in the Amargosa Desert using borehole drill cuttings, groundwater chemistry, and applying a novel method for collecting runoff water. The sampling process included sediment, precipitation, and runoff water. In total, 176 runoff, 182 sediment, and 45 precipitation samples were collected between January, 2009 and January, 2011.Water chemistry, chloride concentrations, and stable isotopes of water collected from specially designed runoff samplers, placed …

Phylogeography Of Northern Populations Of The Black-Tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus Molossus Baird And Girard, 1853) With The Revalidation Of C. Ornatus Hallowell, 1854, Christopher Anderson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The black-tailed rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus Baird and Girard, 1853) is a wide-ranging species complex with representatives from the southwestern United States through the highlands of central and southern Mexico. The systematics of this group has received little attention and in the past six decades only two taxonomic revisions have been proposed (the transfer of C. basiliscus oaxacus to C. molossus and the elevation of C. m. estebanensis to full species). However, a recent revision of the Neotropical rattlesnakes (C. durissus and C. simus) recovered a polyphyletic C. molossus. Sequenced data were obtained from three mitochondrial genes …

The Impact Of Training On Mentor And Student Teachers' Self Efficacy In Physical Education, Ana Lilia Cisneros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Providing support from an experienced teacher through mentoring has been as one way to reform teaching and teacher education. To keep talented beginning teachers in the profession, more than 30 states have implemented some form of mentoring program for novice teacher assistance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of formal training on mentor and student teachers' self-efficacy in physical education. The study included eight mentors and seven student teachers in the experimental group receiving training. Three mentor and three student teachers were part of the control group and received no training. All results indicated the mentor …

Prediction Of Ribonucleic Acid Secondary Structures Using A Heuristic Backtracking Search, Christopher Roman Cuellar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is essential for all forms of life. RNA is made up of a large chain of nucleotide bases: Guanine (G), Uracil (U), Cytosine (C), and Adenine (A). An RNA strand can fold on itself to allow G-C, A-U, and G-U bases to form hydrogen bonds, this is known as a secondary structure. Knowing the secondary structure of an RNA chain is very important because it will allow researchers to better understand its specific functions. RNA will create secondary structures that tend to minimize their free energy. RNA secondary structure prediction is the attempt to predict physical folding …