Digital Commons Network^™

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor Modulates Proliferation, Cell Cycle, And Apoptotic Activity In Head And Neck Cancer Cell Lines, Kusumawadee Utispan, Sittichai Koontongkaew

Journal of Dental Sciences

Background/purpose Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a multifunctional cytokine that contributes to the progression of several cancers. MIF overexpression has been reported in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients. However, the exact role of MIF in HNSCC is not fully understood. Our aim was to evaluate the amount of secreted MIF and the role of MIF in the proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis in HNSCC cell lines. Materials and methods Genetically matched HNSCC cell lines derived from primary (HN18 and HN30) and metastatic sites (HN17 and HN31) from the same patient were used in this study. The …

Processing And Characterization Of Ceria-Zirconia Containing Graphene Quantum Dots, Andrew Dina

Master's Theses

Zirconia-based nanoparticles have been used in various applications, such as catalyst, filters, oxygen storage, and sensors. Among many synthesis methods to produce zirconia (ZrO2) nanoparticles, aqueous sodium borohydride (NaBH4) precipitation has shown to be simple and capable of large-scale production. In this work, the NaBH4 precipitation of ZrO2 was extended to include ceria (CeO2) and graphene quantum dots (GQDs). The resulting nanocomposites were characterized by thermal, crystallographic, compositional, and electron microscopy analysis techniques. The presence of CeO2 lowered the amorphous to tetragonal phase transformation temperature by ~40 ℃. The presence of GQDs did not affect the amorphous to tetragonal transformation …

Innovation Institutions And The Opioid Crisis, Daniel J. Hemel, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

The United States has recently—and belatedly—come to recognize opioid addiction as a public health crisis. What has gone mostly unrecognized is the degree to which this crisis is intertwined with U.S. intellectual property law and related elements of U.S. innovation policy. Innovation institutions—the legal arrangements that structure incentives for production and allocation of knowledge goods—encouraged the development and commercialization of addictive painkillers, restricted access to opioid antidotes, and (perhaps most importantly) failed to facilitate investments in alternative, non-addictive treatments for chronic pain. Although innovation policy does not bear all the blame for the opioid wave that has washed over communities …

Racial Purges, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

In a two-year period, 1885-86, over 168 communities in America forcibly expelled Chinese residents from their midst. This essay, inspired by historian Beth Lew-Williams's book, THE CHINESE MUST GO, investigates the nineteenth-century purges of Chinese residents that occurred throughout the American west. I make three arguments. First, these acts of racial and political terror complicate our understanding of racial violence in America. Many of the actions were denounced, but they were also surprisingly effective in forcing business and political leaders to support the indefinite suspension of Chinese migration. Perpetrators faced almost no legal repercussions, and unlike for freed persons, racial …

Trajectories Of Hiv-Related Internalized Stigma And Disclosure Concerns Among Art Initiators And Non-Initiators In South Africa, Brian T. Chan, Brendan G. Maughan-Brown, Laura M. Bogart, Valerie A. Earnshaw, Gugulethu Tshabalala, Ingrid Courtney, Janan J. Dietrich, Catherine Orrell, Glenda Gray, David R. Bangsberg, Alexander C. Tsai, Ingrid T. Katz

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

HIV-related stigma among people living with HIV (PLHIV) is associated with worse health outcomes. We used longitudinal data from a multisite cohort in South Africa to assess changes over time in stigma after HIV diagnosis and determine whether antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation is associated with stigma reduction. We administered the Internalized AIDS-Related Stigma Scale (IARSS, a six-item dichotomous scale questionnaire) at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months to newly diagnosed ART-eligible participants between 2014 and 2015. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the IARSS contained a four-item internalized stigma factor (α = .80) and a two-item disclosure concerns factor (α …

Time-To-Completed-Imaging, Survival And Function In Patients With Spinal Epidural Abscess: Description Of A Series Of 34 Patients, 2015–2018, Caroline King, Cameron Fisher, Patrick C.M. Brown, Kelsey C. Priest, Mary Tanski, Peter Sullivan

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction: Spinal epidural abscess (SEA) is a rare and life-threatening infection with increasing incidence over the past two decades. Delays in diagnosis can cause significant morbidity and mortality among patients.

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe trends in time-to-imaging and intervention, risk factors, and outcomes among patients presenting to the emergency department with SEA at a single academic medical center in Portland, Oregon.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study analyzed data from patients with new SEA diagnosis at a single hospital from October 1, 2015 to April 1, 2018. We describe averages to time-to-imaging and …

A Sexual Health Promotion App For Transgender Women (Trans Women Connected): Development And Usability Study, Christina J. Sun, Kirsten M. Anderson, Tamara Kuhn, Liat Tzvia Mayer, Charles H. Klein

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: HIV severely impacts the transgender communities in the United States, and transgender women have the highest HIV incidence rates among any identified risk group. Guided by formative research with transgender women and by an expert advisory panel of transgender women, we designed a prototype mobile app to promote HIV prevention among transgender women.

Objective: This study aimed to develop and test the usability and acceptability of the prototype Trans Women Connected mobile app.

Methods: We engaged in a 3-phase prototype development process. After conducting formative research about the health needs of this population, we outlined a theory-based app framework …

Analysis Of Covid-19 Transmission: Low Risk Of Presymptomatic Spread?, Mark K. Slifka, William B. Messer, Ian J. Amanna

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

More than 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) have been identified worldwide and a number of case reports1-5 have indicated that COVID-19 has the potential to be transmitted prior to disease onset. Studies have also shown that infectious virus can be isolated from presymptomatic COVID-19 cases6 and although it is unknown what level of infectious virus is needed to confer efficient transmission potential, detection of infectious virus in the upper respiratory tract indicates that presymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 is plausible. Fear of asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 has led to considerable concern among public health policy …

A Public Health Law Path For Second Amendment Jurisprudence, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

The two landmark gun rights cases, District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, came down in 2008 and 2010, respectively. In the decade that has followed, two things have become abundantly clear. First, these cases provide little clarity about the nature and scope of Second Amendment rights, resulting in chaos and circuit splits in the lower courts. Second, growing empirical evidence has revealed that, in the background of the debate on individual constitutional rights, a serious gun violence epidemic is intensifying around the country. In one corner, gun rights advocates worry that increased firearm regulation will …

State Handgun Purchase Age Minimums In The Us And Adolescent Suicide Rates: Regression Discontinuity And Difference-In-Differences Analyses, Julia Raifman, Elysia Larson, Colleen L. Barry, Michael Siegel, Michael Ulrich, Anita Knopov, Sandro Galea

Faculty Scholarship

Objective To evaluate the association between US state policies that establish age 18 or 21 years as the minimum purchaser age for the sale of handguns and adolescent suicide rate.

Design Regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences analyses.

Setting 46 US states without policy changes between 2001 and 2017; Missouri and South Carolina, which lowered the age for handgun sales in 2007 and 2008, respectively; and West Virginia and Wyoming, which increased the age for handgun sales in 2010.

Participants Adolescents aged 13 to 20 years(554 461 961 from 2001 to 2017) in the regression discontinuity analysis, and adolescents aged 18 …

Rethinking The Impact Of Third-Party Funding On Access To Civil Justice, Victoria Sahani

Faculty Scholarship

Third-party funding indisputably puts a gold-weighted thumb on the scales of justice in favor of funded parties for two main reasons: (1) funded cases already tend to be calculable winners on the merits, and (2) third-party funders seeking a profit generally do not fund cases that are demonstrably likely to lose on the merits. Thus, we are left with both the promising potential for winners to be more likely to win with third-party funding and the alarming realization that not all winners are offered this same chance. This provokes a larger, fundamental question: If funders are picking winners among the …

Cyber Mobs, Disinformation, And Death Videos: The Internet As It Is (And As It Should Be), Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Fiction and visual representations can alter our understanding of human experiences and struggles. They help us understand human frailties and suffering in a visceral way. Nick Drnaso’s graphic novel Sabrina does that in spades. In Sabrina, a woman is murdered by a misogynist, and a video of her execution is leaked. Conspiracy theorists deem her murder a hoax. A cyber mob smears the woman’s loved ones as crisis actors, posts death threats, and spreads their personal information. The attacks continue until a shooting massacre redirects the cyber mob’s wrath to other mourners. Sabrina captures the breathtaking velocity of disinformation online …

Is Medicare For All The Answer? Assessing The Health Reform Gestalt As The Aca Turns 10, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

As presidential candidates debate health reform, the expression “Medicare for All” (“M4A”) is on repeat, yet few appear to understand precisely what Medicare is or what M4A would mean. Even more striking is that Americans are vigorously debating health reform when the ACA – President Obama’s signature legislation and a health reform effort on a scale not seen in decades – turns 10 on March 23.

The ACA pioneered universal coverage, but it also ratcheted up health care complexity by building new scaffolding around an old foundation. This fragmented landscape has been exacerbated by a crazy quilt of implementation crafted …

The Internet As A Speech Machine And Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Reform, Danielle K. Citron, Mary Anne Franks

Faculty Scholarship

A robust public debate is currently underway about the responsibility of online platforms. We have long called for this discussion, but only recently has it been seriously taken up by legislators and the public. The debate begins with a basic question: should platforms should be responsible for user-generated content? If so, under what circumstances? What exactly would such responsibility look like? Under consideration is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a provision originally designed to encourage tech companies to clean up “offensive” online content. The public discourse around Section 230, however, is riddled with misconceptions. As an initial matter, many …

The Automated Administrative State: A Crisis Of Legitimacy, Danielle K. Citron, Ryan Calo

Faculty Scholarship

The legitimacy of the administrative state is premised on our faith in agency expertise. Despite their extra-constitutional structure, administrative agencies have been on firm footing for a long time in reverence to their critical role in governing a complex, evolving society. They are delegated enormous power because they respond expertly and nimbly to evolving conditions.

In recent decades, state and federal agencies have embraced a novel mode of operation: automation. Agencies rely more and more on software and algorithms in carrying out their delegated responsibilities. The automated administrative state, however, is demonstrably riddled with concerns. Legal challenges regarding the denial …

Error Costs, Ratio Tests, And Patent Antitrust Law, Keith N. Hylton, Wendy Xu

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the welfare tradeoff between patent and antitrust law. Since patent and antitrust law have contradictory goals, the question that naturally arises is how one should choose between the two in instances where there is a conflict. One sensible approach to choosing between two legal standards, or between proof standards with respect to evidence, is to consider the relative costs of errors. The approach in this paper is to consider the ratio of false positives to false negatives in patent antitrust. We find that the relevant error cost ratio for patent antitrust is the proportion of the sum …

Proper Conjugation Of Bodies: Chastity, Age, And Care Work In Sri Lankan Migrants’ Families, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Physical and symbolic aspects of bodies limit the migration trajectories of female domestic workers from a Buddhist community in coastal Sri Lanka. Government regulations and family decisions regarding women’s overseas labour draw upon and in turn influence discourses about gender, sexuality, age, health, and class. This ethnographic analysis illustrates that local norms task women with nurturing the brains of babies, preserving the chastity of teenage daughters, caring for frail elders, and preventing their working-class husbands from overindulging in liquor or having sex with other women. Successful social reproduction depends on the proper conjunctions of bodies in the extended family. Corporeal …

Between “Us” And “Them”: Political Subjectivities In The Shadows Of The 2018 Brazilian Election, Charles H. Klein, Milena Mateuzi Carmo, Alessandra Tavares

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article examines political subjectivities, community engagements and voting practices among residents of São Paulo’s Zona Sul peripheries in the three years preceding Brazil’s 2018 presidential election. Building on a 398-person household survey, 46 in-depth interviews, and extensive participation observation over the course of a fouryear study, we argue that although most residents of our study communities across the political spectrum are disenchanted with institutional politics, many maintain political engagement through their everyday lives, including activism centered on intersectional identities and state-sponsored violence/genocide. Our discussion combines statistical analysis and auto-ethnographic inflected vignettes and is in dialogue with two common themes …

Responsible Scholarship In A Crisis: A Plea For Fairness In Academic Discourse On The Carbon Pricing References, Stepan Wood, Meinhard Doelle, Dayna Nadine Scott

All Faculty Publications

The Canadian federal government’s carbon pricing legislation has generated substantial public and academic debate. In this paper we argue that academic debate should adhere to standards for responsible conduct of research during crises such as the current climate emergency, and avoid the nastiness and distortion that infect populist political rhetoric and social media. We discuss the norms of responsible scholarship that apply to Canadian legal academics, with a focus on standards that demand scrupulous fairness to other scholars and to the materials one is analyzing. We argue that a recent article by Professor Dwight Newman on the Saskatchewan and Ontario …

The Meaning Of Life: A Study Of The Use Of Parole Ineligibility For Murder Sentencing, Isabel Grant, Crystal Choi, Debra Parkes

All Faculty Publications

A number of legal developments in recent years suggest that murder sentencing may be becoming increasingly punitive. This study examines two aspects of setting parole ineligibility. First, using cases from three two-year time periods spanning the past three decades, the authors explore whether judicial calculations of parole ineligibility for second degree murder have changed over time. Second, the authors examine changes enacted in 2011 to allow parole ineligibility to be imposed consecutively for those who commit more than one murder. The study finds a national trend towards reduced reliance on the minimum 10-year period of parole ineligibility, a slight increase …

An Exploratory Case Study: Using Web-Based Micro Videos As A Parent Involvement Tool To Support Families With Preschool Age Children In Early Numeracy Development, Jamie Thompson

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

The United States Federal Government recognized the importance of parent involvement in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Parent involvement has been associated with lower grade retention rates (student repeating a grade level), higher graduation rates, and higher student achievement rates. Reported obstacles to parent involvement include lack of child development knowledge and time constraints. In early childhood, a major focus has been placed on early literacy skills. However, studies that involve early numeracy skills especially in the home environment are lacking. Therefore, this study attempted to fill that void. An instrumental exploratory case study research design …

Negotiating My Chineseness In College: The Complexities And Uniqueness Of Being Chinese American, Yan Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Chinese Americans are historically perceived as “perpetual foreigners” in the American political, cultural and racial discourses. People of Chinese descent have long been conceived as sharing a same ancestor as those in China. Situated in the global context of China’s rise in the world, culturally, politically and economically, this research looks at how Chinese American college students negotiate their ethnic identity in the Midwest of the United States. The current Coronavirus outbreak brought new waves of anti-Chinese/Asian sentiment into American political and cultural life. This rhetoric makes the discussion of Chinese American college students’ ethnicity construction crucial.

Using qualitative research …

Advanced Multilevel Models For Comparing Group Characteristics: The Case Of Sex Differences In Reading Achievement, Rongxiu Wu

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

To help improve and advance research methodology when comparing the group characteristics, two advanced multilevel models were developed and introduced, which would allow a deeper and more refined look at the issue of sex differences in reading achievement.

The first model is a restricted multilevel model for the examination of institutional effects on multiple groups of individuals. The goal of this multivariate multilevel model with individuals nested within institutions was to estimate the institutional effects on multiple groups of individuals. With the employment of 2009 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, an application was illustrated to examine whether …

“Checking Off Boxes”: Teachers Describe Civic Education In World History: A Mixed Methods Study, Carly Claire Muetterties

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Scholars have long identified fostering democratic citizenship as a primary purpose of public schooling in the United States, meaning schools should intentionally prepare students with the knowledge and skills needed for active, informed democratic civic life. Furthermore, global interconnectedness has reshaped needed knowledge to participate in civic life. History is often identified as subject content well suited to address civic education and prepare students for citizenship. Though scholars point to a connection between world history and civic education, there is little empirical research studying how civic education informs teachers’ curriculum and instruction in world history. The purpose of this explanatory …

The Sound Of Leadership: The Self-Leadership Strategies Of Local Activist Musicians, John Hill

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Within this dissertation I focused on the examination of local activist musicians’ self-leadership strategies and the method in which they lead social change movements. Additionally, I sought to increase the understanding of charismatic leadership, self-leadership strategies of local activist musicians, and the method in which local activist musicians lead social movements. To my knowledge, no published studies have explored local activist musicians’ self-leadership strategies. Therefore, this study is significant because I (a) explored a term which lacks a unifying definition, charismatic leadership, (b) provided theoretical foundations for activist musicians and social change, and (c) explored the self-leadership strategies of …

Sexual Health Education In Kentucky's Public High Schools, Marjorie Stanek

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

This dissertation seeks to enhance the understanding of sexual health education efforts, as they currently exist in Kentucky’s public high schools. It will include an examination of the factors that influence the provision of sexual health education in Kentucky schools, including relevant legislation, directives from the Kentucky Department of Education, and the presence of site-based councils within the Commonwealth. Additionally, the suggested curriculum elements from the Kentucky Department of Education’s Academic Standards, which were implemented during the 2019-2020 school year, will be compared to those established within the National Sexuality Education Standards (NSES), which serve as a gold standard …

A Case Study Of A Stem Specialist Co-Teaching Model, Kristen Lynn Witt

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

This research is focused on elementary science teaching and learning with support of a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) specialist because science tends to be nearly absent from self-contained classrooms in the primary grades. Research has established STEM education needs to increase, however, a key question for researchers remains who should teach science and how we can improve teacher efficacy for science education. The purpose of this study is to discover the impacts of a STEM specialist’s role on an elementary school’s daily science instruction. “Impact” refers to teachers, administrators, and student’s value in science education, teacher’s confidence in …

Muslim College Students And Civic Engagement, Aus Abdulwahhab

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This study explores the nature of civic engagement of Muslim college students in the United States. The Community of Practice Theory is used as a conceptual structure to explore the relation between meaning, practice, identity and organization for Muslim students active in civic engagement through campus-based Muslim Student organizations. Pluralism, as shared values that combine different people and advocates wider civic participation, was adopted as part of the conceptual framework to see how the Muslim students think, serve, learn, and develop throughout the process of engagement on campus and in the local community. Particular attention is paid to the impacts …

The University School: The University Of Kentucky's Role In The Laboratory School Movement Of The 20th Century, Shanna M. Patton

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This study expands the scope of institution-level research on college and university-run laboratory schools to include the University of Kentucky’s on-campus laboratory school that operated from 1918 to 1965. Specifically, it preserves the institutional history of UK’s laboratory school, which has largely disappeared from local memory; provides a specific case study of a laboratory school in a largely unstudied state and region, namely Kentucky and the South; and contextualizes the role and trajectory UK’s laboratory school played in the larger Laboratory School Movement of the 20^th century. Because of UK’s status as a southern land grant university, this research …

What Does It Mean To Be White: Investigating White Culture, White Privilege And Allyship Through The Lens Of Aspiring White Allies, Brett Kirkpatrick

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

In 2017, prominent counseling psychologists stressed the need to make Whiteness and allyship a focus of future research. In particular, they noted that a comprehensive definition of what it means to be White was missing from the extant literature within counseling psychology. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), the present study recruited 10 White individuals, who self-identified as an ally, and asked them to describe how they experienced being White and an ally in their everyday lives. Findings revealed that White culture and White privilege have components that are visible and invisible to White individuals. The more visible component of White …