Digital Commons Network^™

Culture Is A Language, Can't You Read?: Reading Gay Rights As Human Rights, Jen Corbridge

University Honors Theses

Scholars writing about postcolonialism, race, and gender have warned against universal conceptions of identity, but Western states have managed to expand their agendas through the production of a sexual citizenship. In this paper, I attempt to unpack the component structures of Clinton’s “Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day” speech in order to tease out the ways in which she reproduces racist, Orientalist and Islamophobic rhetoric in order to advocate for a universal conception of sexual identity. Using contemporary scholarship that explores the intersection of sexuality, race, and nationalism, I argue that Clinton’s speech, using tried and true colonialist …

Organizational Culture Change Resulting From Human Resources Outsourcing, Emily Murrell

University Honors Theses

Human Resources outsourcing has become a way for businesses to save money, but has also become a problem in keeping organizational environments the same (Cook, 2000; Cobb 2009; Mol, 2007). Outsourcing includes work that can be done by employees, but services can also be provided by an outside vendor for a lower price (Cook, 2000), and can affect an organizations performance (Mol, 2007). There are parts of Human Resources functions such as staffing, recruiting, training, succession planning and organizational development, and benefit planning that can be outsourced (Cook, 2000). Studies have looked at the difference between organizations that have outsourced …

References To Gendered Grief In Children's Media: A Content Analysis Of Grief Picture Books, Machaila Budgeon

University Honors Theses

Gender stereotypes, gender roles and the underrepresentation of women permeate modern American culture. These forms of sexism limit the socially acceptable ways that children are able to express difficult emotion as they move through the grief process. This study focuses on these forms of sexism as they influence the creation and continuation of gendered grief by coding seventeen children’s grief picture books. Findings support the hypotheses that, not only are gender stereotypes, roles and the underrepresentation of both men and women present in grief picture books, but that they contribute to gendered grief. Suggestions for future research include a larger …

A Paradigm Shift: From A Categorical To Dimensional Diagnostic Model Of Personality Disorder, Jessica Green

University Honors Theses

This thesis discusses the possibility of a paradigm shift in the conceptualization of personality disorders (PDs), and eventually all psychological disorders, from categorical to dimensional. It examines the three main types of models utilized for diagnosing PDs. These main types are: the categorical model, where symptoms are organized in a check list based on categories; the dimensional model, where symptoms are organized on a spectrum rather than in a list; and the hybrid model, which is a combination of the two. It focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of each model and how they are used to define and diagnose …

Promotion Of Thriving In Youth: The Intersections Of The Positive Youth Development Perspective And Challenge Course Programming, Zachary H. Snyder

University Honors Theses

This paper’s intent is to explore the Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective, its applications, and the growing research topics pertaining to it. I will demonstrate the importance of developmental assets and PYD centered programs in the human journey towards "Thriving," which is understood as the ultimate state of being achieved by the systematic promotion of positive development across time in a youth’s life (Lerner et al, 2005). My paper also explains challenge course programming and its relationship to the Positive Youth Development perspective. Upon demonstrating this relationship, I offer a few ideas for future challenge course programming that would foster …

Get Your Run On: Coding A Website, Kadie Kobielusz

University Honors Theses

Graphic design is all around us--from packaging products, advertisements for concerts, to logos for businesses and user interface for websites. Each and every design has to specifically cater to the audience of the item/business and help to address and express its look and feel. In essence, it needs to grab the audience enough to sell. Thus, there’s a multitude of different styles that are employed to help exhibit these variances between products.

In this thesis, I explore the realm of web development by coding a website for runners called "Get Your Run On." Being an enthusiastic runner myself, I designed …

Towards Graphene Remote Plasma Interfacial Growth And Auger Spectra Simulation, Alex Jacobson

University Honors Theses

Graphene, the single layer of carbon atoms which form a honeycomb lattice, has excellent physical properties that make it an well known material for fundamental and applied research. A surface sensitive technique known as Auger electron spectroscopy is ideal for studying graphene due to the thickness of the graphene. A complete understanding of how the various peak in the graphene Auger spectra occur is not yet available. Towards explaining these peaks a simulation which predicts the Auger energies of neutral free carbon has been scripted. Growth of graphene which is mostly likely to see the greatest implementation in industry occurs …

The French Economy: An Examination Of Competition And Regulation, Katherine Quick

University Honors Theses

Several factors can affect a country’s economic competitiveness, one of which being an imbalanced ratio between imports and exports. Add the contributions of high debt and high unemployment rates, and you have the French economy of 2014. While France was not as dramatically affected by the Euro Crisis in 2009, their economic recovery rate was one of the slowest in the European Union, and has continued on this sluggish rate since. The profitability of the French firms has decreased enough to be a threat to the competitiveness of the French economy: the profit margin is the lowest in the euro …

The Role Of Translesion Dna Polymerase(S) In The Survival Of Escherichia Coli Exposed To Uva Light In The Presence Of Psoralen And Angelicin, Dena Livingstone

University Honors Theses

The chemical compounds 8-methoxy-psoralen and angelicin are two types of furocoumarins that intercalate into DNA and form mono-adducts when exposed to UVA light. However, 8-methoxy-psoralen, is also capable of forming a DNA interstrand cross-link in addition to mono-adducts. These lesions change the structure of DNA and block the DNA polymerase during replication, leading to lethality, mutagenesis, or rearrangements if not repaired. The repair of monoadducts is known to be carried out by nucleotide excision repair. However, how interstrand DNA crosslinks are repaired is less clear. The repair of crosslinks has been proposed to involve a number of pathways, which include: …

On The Role Of Probability In Hume's Imagination And Associationism: A Bayesian Response To Fodor's Hume Variations, Jason Krivo Flores

University Honors Theses

In his 2003 book Hume Variations, Jerry Fodor argues the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) has obviated the need for Hume's associationism and faculty of imagination. Contrary to Fodor, in this paper I argue that contemporary Bayesian models of cognitive science suggest that Hume’s account continues to comprise a viable theory of mental operations. I propose a Bayesian interpretation of Hume's associationism wherein the "liberty of the imagination to transpose and change its ideas" is accounted for by the contributions of randomness, noise, or stochasticity--i.e., probability.

If my analysis is on track, Fodor has misconstrued the Humean mind by interpreting …

Green Roofs Support A Wide Diversity Of Collembola In Urban Portland, Oregon, Konrad Miziolek

University Honors Theses

Green roofs can help address habitat loss in urban areas by supporting plant and animal communities. To determine whether green roofs can support collembola biodiversity, we collected pitfall samples from April-June 2015 on two extensive and two intensive green roofs in urban Portland, Oregon. Twenty morphospecies were found across the roofs, indicating that green roofs support a diversity of collembola taxa. The intensive roofs were more biodiverse than the extensive, though roof type may not be the most significant factor affecting collembolan biodiversity. Each of the four green roofs were characterized by a different and unique most dominant morphospecies, and, …

Differentiability Of Correlations In Realistic Quantum Mechanics, Alejandro Cabrera, Edson De Faria, Enrique Pujals, Charles Tresser

Publications and Research

We prove a version of Bell’s theorem in which the locality assumption is weakened. We start by assuming theoretical quantum mechanics and weak forms of relativistic causality and of realism (essentially the fact that observable values are well defined independently of whether or not they are measured). Under these hypotheses, we show that only one of the correlation functions that can be formulated in the framework of the usual Bell theorem is unknown. We prove that this unknown function must be differentiable at certain angular configuration points that include the origin. We also prove that, if this correlation is assumed …

Continuity Vs. Discontinuity: The Issue Of Race And Forced Labor After Emancipation In The American South, Alexander Elliott Clarke-Ritter

University Honors Theses

The United States emancipation narrative endures in the popular American conscious as a watershed moment in American history that marked the end of slavery and the beginning of freedom for African Americans. Freedom is also commonly thought of as something that was bestowed upon African Americans by the benevolent Northern government and the efforts of Union forces. The popular American conscious has been hard-pressed to question this romanticized narrative in American history. It is thus the goal of this analysis to challenge these commonly held, popular beliefs. This study argues that emancipation in many ways did not truly mark the …

Geochemistry And Petrography Of Igneous Components Of The Dalles Formation In The Dufur West Quadrangle, Oregon, Heather H. Herinckx

University Honors Theses

The Dalles Formation is a sequence of volcanic, volcaniclastic and sedimentary deposits of the late Miocene to Pliocene. The unit stretches along the eastern flanks of Mount Hood from Maupin, northward to the Columbia River, near The Dalles, Oregon (Figure 1). The Dalles Formation consists of lavas that are generally dacitic in composition and are composed of block-and-ash flows, debris-flows, and reworked fluvial sediments. Past workers have mapped the unit as the Dalles Formation "Undivided". The scope of this project has been to investigate the geochemical and petrographic characteristics and whether they may suggest distinct units. A section of the …

Diagnosis Of Mental Illness Today And Tomorrow: A Literary Review Of The Current Methods, Drawbacks, And Sociological Components Of Mental Health With Regard To The Diagnosis Of Mental Illness, Sova Novak

University Honors Theses

The diagnosis of mental illness has sometimes been a controversial issue due to concerns about reliability and validity of diagnosis. Current methods focus on the categorical assessment of presented symptoms, however, the assessment of the factors leading up to and correlated with mental illness could be a more helpful tool for identifying mental illness itself. The position of this paper is that an analysis of these factors and in particular the integration of the sociological perspective could lead to a better method of diagnosis and understanding of mental illness. A brief overview of the three primary models of mental illness …

Compassion Fatigue, The Wellness Of Care Providers, And The Quality Of Patient Care, Merna Labib

University Honors Theses

Working with traumatized patients in the Emergency Department can compromise the well-being of the provider and the quality of patient care. Compassion Fatigue and burnout are two terms used to describe provider inability to cope with stress at work. However, compassion fatigue is a term specific to care providers and describes the emotional and psychological effects consequent to caring for traumatized patients, which leads to a reduced capacity to show compassionate care. Burnout, on the other hand, is consequent to cumulative stress and lack of accomplishment at work. This thesis seeks to focus on compassion fatigue and considers burnout to …

Matrix Multiplication, Trilinear Decompositions, Apa Algorithms, And Summation, Victor Pan

Publications and Research

Matrix multiplication (hereafter we use the acronym MM) is among the most fundamental operations of modern computations. The efficiency of its performance depends on various factors, in particular vectorization, data movement and arithmetic complexity of the computations, but here we focus just on the study of the arithmetic cost and the impact of this study on other areas of modern computing. In the early 1970s it was expected that the straightforward cubic time algorithm for MM will soon be accelerated to enable MM in nearly quadratic arithmetic time, with some far fetched implications. While pursuing this goal the mainstream research …

The Use Of Psychological Defense Mechanisms – By Librarians And The Public – In Response To Traditional And Binary Librarian Stereotypes, Beth Posner

Publications and Research

Images of librarians in popular culture include the traditional stereotype - of a mousy spinster who cares more for protecting books than for helping people - as well as several contrasting or binary images - such as librarians who are wild by night (although quiet by day), know-it-alls (rather than know-nothings), or high-tech (instead of old-fashioned.) In response to the anxiety provoked by the more pernicious aspects of these images, both librarians and the public may employ a variety of common unconscious defense mechanisms. This chapter examines some of those used by the public - including stereotyping, and splitting or …

Collecting To The Core: American Crime Fiction, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Overview of key secondary works analyzing American crime fiction: general works, works dealing with specific periods, works dealing with crime fiction by women and African Americans.

You Know What You Write, But Do You Know Your Rights? Understanding And Protecting Your Rights As An Author, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

When you publish a journal article, you sign a copyright or licensing agreement. Do you know what you’re agreeing to when you sign it?

Different journals have different policies: Some journals require you to relinquish your copyright. (You then have to ask permission or even pay to share your article with students and colleagues!) Some journals allow you to retain some rights (e.g., the right to post online). Some journals leave copyright in your hands. (You simply give the journal a non-exclusive license to publish the article.)

How can you find out a journal’s policy? How can you negotiate your …

Imperatives In Informal Organizational Resource Exchange In Central Europe, David Jancsics

Publications and Research

This paper challenges the mainstream social scientific approach that emphasizes “moral inferiority” in corruption and bribery in Central and Eastern Europe. We argue that in many cases, people participate in informal organizational resource exchanges not because of immorality or greed but rather because of powerful external forces. By using the case of contemporary Hungary to support this argument, this paper provides a systematic analysis of such imperatives. The findings of 50 in-depth qualitative interviews suggest that two main imperatives can be distinguished; macro-level social and meso-level organizational forces. Macro-level forces may be linked to historical paths, Hungary's socialist and pre- …

Review: New York City Public Schools From Brownsville To Bloomberg, Stephen Brier

Publications and Research

Review of Heather Lewis's 2015 book, New York City Public Schools from Brownsville to Bloomberg, which explores the historical and educational policy context of the struggle for community control of the New York City public schools from the 1960s to 2000, the year Mayor Michael Bloomberg assumed control over the city's public school system.

Ways Of Seeing Language In Nineteenth-Century Galicia, Spain, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

This article discusses a language-ideological debate surrounding Galician between two Spanish intellectuals – one Andalusian, Juan Valera, and one Galician, Manuel Murguía – who clashed on the desirability of the literary cultivation of the language. This encounter is framed as a language ideological debate and interpreted in the context of Spain’s late nineteenth-century politics of regional and national identity.

A Qualitative Study Of Stress In Individuals Self-Employed In Solo Businesses, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Joseph J. Mazzola

Publications and Research

This qualitative study involved 54 individuals who were self-employed in a variety of solo businesses. All participants were administered a semistructured interview that inquired into various aspects of their work experience with the data subject to reliability and validity checks. The study identified stressful incidents, coping strategies, and emotional strains arising from those stressful incidents. Uncertainty about income was a common background stressor. Recent specific stressors included dramatic slowdowns in business, reputational threat, betrayal, unreasonable customers, and medical problems. Commonly occurring strains included apprehension/anxiety, frustration, anger, and sadness/depression. The self-employed used problem-focused coping much more often than emotion-focused coping. We …

Household Food Security And Food Sovereignty : Framing The Future Of Hunger And Agriculture, Andrea Wilson

University Honors Theses

Globally, agriculture is both threatened by and contributing to the converging, interlinked problems of hunger, malnutrition, climate change, resource competition, and the degradation of natural resources critical to food production, including the health and resilience of agroecosystems. Sustainable solutions to hunger will maximize the multifunctional potential of agriculture to address a multi-faceted crisis. Realizing this potential depends on the resolution of a political struggle over contrasting food system models, rooted in contrary visions of what it means to resolve hunger. This paper analyzes the logics and claims embedded in the "food frames" employed by the World Bank and peasant organization …

Paintings Of Home, Alix Ryan

University Honors Theses

During my childhood years, our family relocated to three countries, passing through seven homes along the way. Establishing a space that provided comfort and emotional safety was always a top priority as we nestled into each location. Regardless of the place we were residing, the walls of the living room were recognizable as nothing other than the living room walls by the Zion National Park poster hung near a window, the wooden bowls situated on an unfamiliar coffee table, the rug rooting our new couch, all in the company of many other trinkets and hangings: emblems of home. The walls …

Person First Planet: A Comprehensive Review Of Person First Language, James Kirszenbaum

University Honors Theses

Person First Language has been around for thirty years yet remains confined to the borders of government agencies, special education classrooms, and professional psychology. Beginning here in Salem, Oregon as an offshoot of the People First Movement (Wehmeyer, Bersani, & Gagne, 2000), a self-advocacy group for persons with disabilities at Fairview Rehabilitation Center. It has since grown from an isolated appeal into an international movement and is the current accepted terminology in the APA and reflects in the language of all pertinent government acts (ADA, IDEA, etc.). Despite all these well intended improvements everyday use of PFL by non-laypersons has …

English Education In Thailand And Singapore : Differences In English Education, Use And Identity, Chelsey Hice

University Honors Theses

The Secretary General of ASEAN asserted the importance of education and the use English in promoting and bringing prosperity to the ASEAN nations. "Through education, through the use of English language and, more importantly, with a heightened sense of ASEAN Identity and ASEAN Community, we hope that ASEAN integration and cooperation will bring both benefits and opportunities to the region" (Le Luong Minh, 2013). Taking Thailand and Singapore into consideration, it is clear that national realities vary greatly within the region in regards to English proficiency rates. Education First’s 2013 English Proficiency Index Report revealed that Singapore was the second …

Learning Intercultural Competency Through International Immersion Travel, Jessica Patching-Bunch

University Honors Theses

Growing informational technology and international business alongside the speed of travel, have facilitated intercultural contact and increased the need for intercultural competency. As the world shrinks there are less defined lines between "us" and "them" and there is an increased need to look beyond our differences and focus on genuine human similarities. Intercultural competency is the ability to interact and communicate with another culture without violating valued social norms. Intercultural competency is preceded by a process of exposure and adaptation to new environments. Intercultural exposure is easily facilitated by international travel. Experiences abroad can be divided into two categories, quality …

Heteroskedasticity Of Unknown Form In Spatial Autoregressive Models With A Moving Average Disturbance Term, Osman Dogan

Publications and Research

In this study, I investigate the necessary condition for the consistency of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of spatial models with a spatial moving average process in the disturbance term. I show that the MLE of spatial autoregressive and spatial moving average parameters is generally inconsistent when heteroskedasticity is not considered in the estimation. I also show that the MLE of parameters of exogenous variables is inconsistent and determine its asymptotic bias. I provide simulation results to evaluate the performance of the MLE. The simulation results indicate that the MLE imposes a substantial amount of bias on both autoregressive and …