Digital Commons Network^™

Queering The Catalog: Queer Theory And The Politics Of Correction, Emily Drabinski

Publications and Research

Critiques of hegemonic library classification structures and controlled vocabularies have a rich history in information studies. This project has pointed out the trouble with classification and cataloging decisions that are framed as objective and neutral but are always ideological and worked to correct bias in library structures. Viewing knowledge organization systems from a queer perspective, however, challenges the idea that classification and subject language can ever be finally corrected. Engaging queer theory and library classification and cataloging together requires new ways of thinking about how to be ethically and politically engaged on behalf of marginal knowledge formations and identities who …

International Organizations, Free Trade And Environmental Citizenship: Mexico And Chile In Comparative Perspective, Sherrie Baver

Publications and Research

This paper focuses on the potential of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and specific International Organizations (IOs) to promote democratic and effective environmental governance. FTAs are often cited in the political science literature for their negative impacts; yet, they are central to the present stage of economic globalization. Given that U.S. FTAs have environmental requirements as do accession agreements to developed country IOs (e.g. OECD), they remain under-explored institutions providing space for activists to expand environmental citizenship. The specific research question explored here is how might activists use these institutions to promote procedural environmental rights to information, participation, and justice, collectively …

Conjuring The Close From Afar A Border-Crossing Tale Of Vieques’ Activism And Obama-Empire, Víctor M. Torres-Vélez, Sarah Molinari, Katharine Lawrence

Publications and Research

After more than 60 years of military occupation, 30 of these under violent military practices, a social movement forced the U.S. Navy from the island of Vieques. This victory would not have been possible without the highly effective organization of civil disobedience carried out on the island. But the sum total of the actions that eventually forced out the U.S. Navy, neither happened exclusively within the boundaries of Vieques, nor was carried out by Viequense residents alone. In this article we want to suggest that this amazing victory—a testament of people’s will in the face of globalization—is also a border- …

Exploring Realism And Magical Realism In Slum Novels Of The Global South, Benjamin Hawkins

University Honors Theses

In this research I compare the magical realist novel Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills by Latife Tekin with Chris Abani's GraceLand in order to combat the assertion that magical realism, because it is a non-Western mode, is intrinsically more appropriate for representations of extreme poverty in the third world than realism. To ground the aesthetic discussion to issues facing slum communities like those central in GraceLand and Berji Kristin, I use Rob Nixon's book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor in which he posits that ecological degradation of the poor's living spaces through oil spills, toxic …

Lacan, Ideology, And Military Behavioral Health: Exploring Interpellation Psychodiscursively, Joseph R. Van Der Naald

University Honors Theses

Recent research in psychosocial studies that draws on a theoretical framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis has granted social psychology with a rich understanding of individuals’ investments in discursive subject positions. The Lacanian psychosocial conception of subjectivity considers how multiple paradoxical narratives, conditioned by desire, form a complex subject constituted through discourse. However, this paradigm has yet to produce a psychosocial discursive analysis of subjection via ideological interpellation. This discourse analysis combines psychoanalytic cultural criticism with Lacanian psychosocial studies to produce an analytic methodology. The thesis then employs this methodology to examine a case study of three interview transcripts from Dr. Janice …

An Examination Of Gentrification And Related Displacement Of Black Residents In Portland's Boise Neighborhood, 1990-2010, Jordan Jordan

University Honors Theses

Issues related to gentrification and its primary consequence, the displacement of vulnerable populations from their homes and communities, are rightly considered among the most pressing social concerns faced by urban communities. Portland, Oregon has seen many of its neighborhoods undergo the gentrification transition, especially in traditionally Black neighborhoods. The Boise neighborhood lies within Northeast Portland's Albina district, which has served as the cultural and commercial heart of Portland's Black community for generations. In the 1990 Census, over 70% of the population of Boise (situated within Multnomah County Census tract 34.02) were Black, while 26% were White. By 2010, those figures …

Agricultural Transitions In Northwestern Argentina, Kimberly Reynolds

University Honors Theses

Worldwide, agriculture has seen a transition from small scale subsistence farming to large scale commercial operations, often associated with green revolution technologies and support by government policies and western models of economic development. Argentina with its history as a salient agricultural exporter serves as a valuable example of the agricultural transition from subsistence to commercial production. In the small town of San Pedro de Cololao, Tucuman, we studied the agricultural transitions that are taking place and analyzed the role that socioeconomic, cultural and political factors play in the shift.

Through the case studies of agricultural practices in San Pedro de …

Beyond "Rockhood" - Stigma, Diversity, And Renewal In A Suburban Portland Neighborhood, Alison Hébert

University Honors Theses

This study examines the reasons for the high levels of perceived disorder in on suburban Portland neighborhood. It examines Census data, crime data, and media covered of the Rockwood neighborhood. Rockwood, increasingly diverse in recent years, suffers from developmental neglect, with much of the neighborhood a food desert. Despite its reputation and high population density, the neighborhood does not have a major crime problem, and given Portland's complicated racial history and the gentrification in the city, this study concludes that the reason for Rockwood's bad neighborhood reputation is racially motivated.

Survey On Humanities Graduate Education And Alternative Academic Careers (Main), Katina Rogers

Publications and Research

As humanities scholars increasingly recognize the value of public engagement, and as the proportion of tenure-track faculty positions available to new graduates continues to decline, many humanities programs are focusing renewed attention on equipping graduate students for careers as scholars both within and beyond academe. To support those efforts, the Scholarly Communication Institute has carried out a study investigating perceptions about career preparation provided by humanities graduate programs. The survey results help to create a more solid foundation on which to base curricular reform and new initiatives by moving the conversation about varied career paths from anecdote to data. The …

(Ad)Dressing The Other: The Amazon In Greek Art, Annaliese Elaine Patten

University Honors Theses

The mythological Amazon represents the opposite of Greek ideals, contrasting the Ancient Greek identity and their societal ideals. In this thesis, I reconsider the role of the Amazon in Greek art between 750 and 400 BCE with particular focus on costume as an indication of a gendered and ethnic Other. This construction of the Other is conveyed through poetic description and visual motif in the minor arts. Responding to previous discourse, I will provide an alternative exploration of Athenian propensity to relegate unwanted foreign traits into the portrayal of the Amazon. The illustrated clothing is adapted to the scope of …

An Inquiry Into The Division Of Labor, Raul Reyes

University Honors Theses

This inquiry seeks to establish that Adam Smith relies upon his books The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1959] and An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776] as complementary texts to introduce and develop his ideas. We will begin with a background of economic thinkers prior to Smith. After summarizing an example of this division of labor by Adam Smith, we will delve into the benefits of the division of labor: more skilled workers, time efficiency, and the invention of proper machinery. Similarly, we will examine the implications brought by this division of labor with …

Local Connections To Global Collections: The Power Of Interlibrary Loan Services, Beth Posner

Publications and Research

Interlibrary loan services facilitate access to both print and digital information, be it from other libraries nearby or from around the world. ILL librarians and staff members also provide integrated, or global, access to library and information services, in general. They help patrons discover holdings in their own local collections, online open access material, and items available only for purchase from publishers or booksellers. By working closely with colleagues in other libraries, and despite copyright and license restrictions on the sharing of information, as well as limits in budget and staffing, library resource sharing specialists offer both global information and …

Queer Housing Nacional Google Group: A Librarian’S Documentation Of A Community-Specific Resource, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Beginning with a discussion of information access and its relationship to communities, this article is a first-person experience for creating a community-specific information resource, a queer housing listserv called Queer Housing Nacional. Written as a case study for how librarians may apply their skills to community as well as document the journey of this time capsuled listserv, one may find that this listserv may complicate librarianship’s promotion of open access, instead, encouraging closed participatory group structures, with collective distributions of power. Included are multiple email exchanges from the listserv, as well as Appendices of survey questions, notable responses, and …

Language, Politics, And History: An Introductory Essay, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

This book chapter examines different articulations of language and history and introduces a new configuration that focuses on the political dimension of language.

Effects Of Hypertension And Diabetes On Sentence Comprehension In Aging, Dalia Cahana-Amitay, Martin Albert, Emmanuel Ojo, Jesse Sayers, Mira Goral, Loraine Obler, Avron Spiro Iii

Publications and Research

Objectives. To assess the impact of hypertension and diabetes mellitus on sentence comprehension in older adults.

Method. Two hundred and ninety-five adults aged 55 to 84 (52% men) participated in this study. Self-report mail survey combined with medical evaluations were used to determine eligibility. Multiple sources were used to determine whether hypertension and diabetes were present or absent and controlled or uncontrolled. Sentence comprehension was evaluated with two tasks: embedded sentences (ES) and sentences with multiple negatives (MN). Outcome measures were percent accuracy and mean reaction time of correct responses on each task.

Results. Regression models adjusted for age, gender, …

Linguistic Emancipation And The Academies Of The Spanish Language In The Twentieth Century: The 1951 Turning Point, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In this article, the author focuses on the conference of academies of the Spanish language that took place in Mexico in 1951 and analyzes the discourses on language as well as the views on the linguistic institutions that emerged in the course of the conference. The reasons for the Real Academia Española´s absence are addressed and so is the initiative by Mexico´s president Miguel Alemán.

Comment On "Density And Physical Current Density Functional Theory", Xiao-Yin Pan, Viraht Sahni

Publications and Research

In this letter to the editor, the authors comment on an earlier article they had published, "Density and Physical Current Density Functional Theory" (Pan, X.-Y. and Sahni, V. (2010), Density and physical current density functional theory. Int. J. Quantum Chem., 110: 2833–2843. doi: 10.1002/qua.22862).

Open Access To Scholarly Articles: Good Policies Ensure Good Practices, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

Open access (OA) to scholarly journal articles is now widely accepted as a good thing. However, it will not become the norm without policies promoting openness. This presentation looks at policies that ensure that hundreds of thousands of articles become OA every year.

Open Access To Scholarly Literature: Which Side Are You On?, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

Open access (OA) to scholarly literature recently hit a major milestone: Half of all research articles published become open access, either immediately or after an embargo period. Are the articles you read among them? What about the articles you write? Are the journals to which you submit open-access friendly? What about the journals for which you peer review? Are there any reasons why the public should not have access to the results of taxpayer-funded research?

This presentation explains the motivation for OA, describes the details of OA, and differentiates between publishing in open access journals (“gold” OA) and self-archiving works …

An Evaluation Of Data Collected By Middle School And College-Level Students In Stream Channel Geomorphic Assessment, Martin D. Lafrenz

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

This project tested the accuracy and repeatability of geomorphic stream channel assessments conducted by two different middle school classes from the Walt Morey Middle School in Troutdale, OR and college students from Portland State University in Portland, OR. Each group surveyed the same three cross-sections in Fairview Creek, a tributary to the Lower Columbia River, in order to assess stream channel geometry, discharge, composition of the bed material, and water quality. The three student groups were all able to accurately document the stream channel geometry, including stream width and mean depth, indicating that these data can be successfully collected by …

Homonationalism, State Rationalities, And Sex Contradictions, Paisley Currah

Publications and Research

Celebrating the re-election of Barack Obama as a win for GLB equality or denouncing the focus on marriage rights as heteronormative misses the point. Both approaches obscure what actually happens in local sites where authority is exercised. Looking into the cracks and crevices of regulatory apparatuses generates a more complex picture. In examining contradictory rules on sex classification, for example, it becomes clear those contradictions often reflect different state projects, such as security, distribution, reproduction. Construing the election as a victory for gay rights or for homonormativity elevates grand concepts—marriage, the state—over the quotidian actions that regulate life.

Popular Music Studies And The Problems Of Sound, Society And Method, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Building on Philip Tagg’s timely intervention (2011), I investigate four things in relation to three dominant Anglophone popular music studies journals (Popular Music and Society, Popular Music, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies): 1) what interdisciplinarity or multidisciplinarity means within popular music studies, with a particular focus on the sites of research and the place of ethnographic and/or anthropological approaches; 2) the extent to which popular music studies has developed canonic scholarship, and the citation tendencies present within scholarship on both Western and non-Western popular musics; 3) the motivations for two scholarly groups, Dancecult and ASARP, to breakaway from …

Strengths And Limitations Of Qualitative Approaches To Research In Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Joseph J. Mazzola

Publications and Research

Like all research methods, qualitative methods have strengths and limitations. This chapter describes seven strengths and five limitations. With an understanding of their strengths and limitations and how to minimize and/or balance them, occupational health psychology (OHP) researchers can benefit from qualitative methods. It is important to understand that qualitative findings do not establish generalizable cause-effect relations. However, qualitative methods can help an OHP researcher develop a theory of causality and derive hypotheses related to the theory and, thus, motivate quantitatively organized research designed to test the hypotheses. The challenge for the OHP researcher is to be mindful of what …

Determinants Of Capital Structure In Agricultural Cooperatives In North Dakota, Ran Shang

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

This thesis analyzes how the optimal capital structure is affected by capital management and major sources of risk under the rule of maximizing the value of discounted cash flows to members. The analysis is done by using the present value of cash flow method. This research employs the panel procedure in Statistical Analysis System (SAS) to solve the firm value optimization problem. The data set includes financial reports from farm supply and grain marketing cooperatives in North Dakota. Empirical Results indicate that the optimal debt ratio is related to the lagged debt ratio, the proportion of assets held as liquid …

Risk Management Strategies For Commodity Processors, Songjiao Chen

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Recent years have witnessed an increase in agricultural commodity price volatility. This thesis analyzes different models to derive optimal hedge strategies for commodity processors, with two components addressed. One is the dependence structure and joint distribution among inputs, outputs, and hedging instruments that impact hedging effectiveness. The second refers to different procurement and sales scenarios a processor may encounter. A domestic flour mill company is used to demonstrate alternative hedging strategies under different processing scenarios. Copula is a relatively new method used to capture flexible dependence structure and joint distribution among assets. The applications of copulas in the agricultural literature …

Filling In Missing Values In The North Dakota Land Valuation Model, Laura Beth Laufmann

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

The North Dakota Land Valuation Model relies on a crop yield data set published by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. Over the years this data set, due to the way in which the data is collected, has developed a growing problem with missing values. This research utilizes a secondary data set and the spatial nature of the crop yield data to develop a new methodology for interpolating the missing values in the NASS data set. This methodology uses the secondary data set to establish the spatial nature of the yield data and to build spatial weights matrices. These spatial …

North Dakota Banking Efficiency: A Dea Application To Agricultural And Non-Agricultural Banks Pre- And Post-Financial Crisis 2002-2012, Samantha Ann Froelich

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

The Great Recession of the late 2000s had negative impacts across the United States economies with unemployment rates rising, bank failures, and other numerous economic problems. However, North Dakota was able to fend off the effects of the Great Recession by relying on their agricultural and energy industries during this time. North Dakota banks were able to avoid failure like many other banks in the nation during the recession. Empirical results of data envelopment analysis efficiency measurement shows that banks in North Dakota were able to increase efficiency from Q4:2002 to Q4:2012 without the recession have negative impacts on efficiency. …

Developing A Model To Value Germplasm Using Real Options, Marit Simonson-Paschke

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

With many varieties of germplasm being developed, it is imperative to the industry that firms decide on a valuation method. This need to include looking at traits of the germplasm, the risk and uncertainty of expected returns associated with a varieties' development and release. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the option value of developing germplasm using the real options approach. The value gained of the variety will be measured and used as a decision factor in the determining the value of the germplasm at different development phases. This approach helps managers decide the best possible option in …

Intermarket Trading Strategies And Risk, Kristopher Douglas Skadberg

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

The purpose of this thesis is to research methods that will be used to discover the profitability and risk of spatially arbitraging soybeans. A portfolio is used to analyze trading strategies, and the dependence measures is critical when simulating all of the variables. The dependence measures will aid in selecting the appropriate assets for the portfolio. The profits and risks for each asset will be analyzed and an optimization procedure will weigh the assets appropriately in bushels. Strategizing has become very important for merchandisers, because of the added risk associated with trading commodities. The results indicate that spatial arbitrage profits …

Food Away From Home Consumption In Urban China: Household Composition And Dining Location Effects, Haiyan Liu

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

China has experienced dramatic changes in food industry in the last three decades, with demographics changed substantially as well. Households are becoming smaller and are expected to age soon. Overweight and obesity have become serious problems at all ages and are worsening rapidly. All these demographic changes are closely related to food consumption and are going to play a vital role on the future of food industry, especially Food-away-from-home (FAFH) consumption. This study intends to analyze food away from home consumption in urban China with respect to household composition and income first, and then examine the influences of dining location …