Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Online Activism And Real Life Environmentalism, Emily Grace Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

Past and present human activities have created and accelerated an array of environmental catastrophes and various systems in the environment remain under threat as a result of human behavior. In hopes of mitigating environmental consequences, a social movement has arisen to encourage people to behave in ways that are more environmentally sustainable. Research shows that individual behavior choices impact the environment, and this influence can be used to positively affect the environment through engagement in pro-environmental behavior. Like with many other social movements, the internet has been a tool in spreading awareness of a cause and allowing people the opportunity …

Trump's Legacy In The Middle East: Strategic Shift And The Geopolitics Of American Foreign Policy In The Region, Bilel Kriaa

Dissertations and Theses

The last six months of the Trump administration witnessed interesting developments regarding its legacy in the Middle East. The normalization of ties between four Arab states and Israel constituted major breakthroughs not only in the regional inter-state relations but also for the American foreign policy in the region.

In this context, this thesis offers insights into how to understand and evaluate the administration's approach towards these developments. Based on systematic and empirical research, I analyze a corpus comprised of Trump-era foreign policy documents regarding the Iranian and Israeli-Palestinian questions. I find, firstly, that the Trump administration pursued a strategic shift …

Freedom Vs. Security: Analyzing The Connection Between States' Prioritization Of Security Over Civil Liberties And Citizen Support For Democratic Norms, Carlyn Trumbull Madden

Dissertations and Theses

Is global democracy declining? This is a question many have argued over, leading to multiple, oftentimes contradictory, answers regarding causes and potential solutions. This thesis seeks to explore the question of democratic decline by analyzing changes over time in public opinion survey data in three states- New Zealand, Turkey, and the United States- looking specifically at how the government has balanced the tradeoff between security and civil liberties in the post-9/11 world. I argue that long-term government prioritization of security over freedoms has eroded support for fundamental democratic norms, as citizens willingly accept restrictions to their rights in exchange for …

The Worth Of Risk: Political Participation And Risk Perceptions, Siri Grubb

Dissertations and Theses

This study draws on concepts from political and risk communication to inform our understanding of what motivates people to be politically active. Inspired by concerns that traditional models of participation do not perform as well among younger and more diverse populations, alternate variables are considered including risk perceptions surrounding policy issues and political parties. Results show that established political variables such as political interest and civic duty remain strongly associated with participation, while offering support for several new variables of interest from the risk communication literature. In the present study, threat and efficacy perceptions explained additional variance in political participation …

Teasing Apart Impacts Of Human Activity And Regional Drought On Madagascar’S Large Vertebrate Fauna: Insights From New Excavations At Tsimanampesotse And Antsirafaly, Laurie R. Godfrey, Brooke Crowley, Kathleen M. Muldoon, Stephen J. Burns, Nick Scroxton, Zachary S. Klukkert, Lovasoa Ranivoharimanana, Jamie Alumbaugh, Matthew Borths, Natalie Vasey

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Madagascar experienced a major faunal turnover near the end of the first millenium CE that particularly affected terrestrial, large-bodied vertebrate species. Teasing apart the relative impacts of people and climate on this event requires a focus on regional records with good chronological control. These records may document coeval changes in rainfall, faunal composition, and human activities. Here we present new paleontological and paleoclimatological data from southwestern Madagascar, the driest part of the island today. We collected over 1500 subfossil bones from deposits at a coastal site called Antsirafaly and from both flooded and dry cave deposits at Tsimanampesotse National Park. …

My Mountain, Your Mountain, Our Mountain: Incorporating Emotional And Sensory Experiences In Mapping Sense Of Place In Mount Hood National Forest, Alicia Ranae Milligan

Dissertations and Theses

Understanding the complex connections humans have with landscapes is necessary for successful land management and planning practices. Only within the last few decades has mapping the values of forest users been used to produce data that can be incorporated into forest planning as a means to better understand social and environmental dynamics. This research used sense of place web mapping coupled with interviews to understand forest users' emotional and sensory experiences within the Mount Hood National Forest and to improve future sense of place mapping research. Two objectives were addressed in this research: 1) develop a typology of individuals' emotions …

Electronic Resource Management In A Post-Plan S World, Jill Emery, Graham Stone

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

cOAlition S and research funding policies mean open access content is no longer a "trend" but rather another consideration of content management for librarians and libraries. In 2018, the authors of this article launched a new version of TERMS (Techniques for Electronic Resources Management). TERMS 2.0 envisages a post-Plan S e-resources life cycle blending e-resources and open access content management. This article outlines how open content management can dovetail into current e-resource management tactics across six TERMS: Investigation of material, procurement and licensing of content, implementation, troubleshooting of problems, evaluation and preservation, and sustainability concerns. Lastly, we reflect on the …

Opening Peer Review In Lis: Identities, Dualities, And Multiplicities, Emily Ford

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

What does it mean to peer review in library and information science? What does it mean to be reviewed? How do our professional identities intersect with this vital research and publishing role? And what does it mean when peer review is opened to reveal these identities? In celebration of Peer Review Week 2021, this free webcast with Emily Ford will share insights into peer review in LIS as discussed in Stories of Open: Opening Peer Review through Narrative Inquiry, a newly published book from ACRL.

Black Liberation In Teacher Education: (Re)Envisioning Educator Preparation To Defend Black Life And Possibility, Justin A. Coles, Darrius Stanley

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Current configurations of teacher education programs are insufficient in attracting and producing teachers equipped to teach through the permanence of antiblackness, instead still relying on race-neutral or color-evasive pedagogies that perpetuate the misrecognition of antiblackness. As evident by the sustained inequities experienced by Black children and the routine marginalization of Black (teacher) educators in the field, we recognize that teacher education programs, and subsequently P-12 classrooms, are not designed nor equipped to reduce the harm caused by persistent anti-Black racism. Despite the ways Blackness is derided and invisibilized in educator preparation, Black students, families, and communities have long countered anti-Black …

Seamless Wayfinding By A Deafblind Adult On An Urban College Campus: A Case Study On Wayfinding Performance, Information Preferences, And Technology Requirements, Martin Swobodzinski, Amy T. Parker, Julie D. Wright, Kyrsten Hansen, Becky Morton

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article reports on an empirical evaluation of the experience, performance, and perception of a deafblind adult participant in an experimental case study on pedestrian travel in an urban environment. The case study assessed the degree of seamlessness of the wayfinding experience pertaining to routes that traverse both indoor and outdoor spaces under different modalities of technology-aided pedestrian travel. Specifically, an adult deafblind pedestrian traveler completed three indoor/outdoor routes on an urban college campus using three supplemental wayfinding support tools: a mobile application, written directions, and a tactile map. A convergent parallel mixed-methods approach was used to synthesize insights from …

Webinar: Data-Driven Mobility Strategies For Multimodal Transportation, Yao-Jan Wu, Abolfazl Karimpour, Xianfeng Terry Yang

TREC Webinar Series

Multimodal transportation systems (e.g., walking, cycling, automobile, public transit, etc.) are effective in increasing people’s travel flexibility, reducing congestion, and improving safety. Therefore, it is critical to understand what factors would affect people’s mode choices. With advanced technology, such as connected and automated vehicles, cities are now facing a transition from traditional urban planning to developing smart cities. To support multimodal transportation management, this study serves as a bridge to connect speed management strategies of conventional corridors to connected vehicle corridors.

The study consists of three main components. In the first component, the impact of speed management strategies along traditional …

Forest Fire Effects On The Temporal Variability Of Landscape Snow Albedo Relative To Burn Severity, Max Gersh

Dissertations and Theses

Snow-water storage is decreasing, while forest fires are increasing in duration, size, frequency, and intensity, due to climate change. Most forest fires occur in the seasonal snow zone, altering snow mass and energy balance for many years following fire. Following forest fires, Surface snow albedo (SSA) decreases, as light absorbing particles (LAP), particularly black carbon (BC) produced in forest fires get deposited throughout the snowpack, altering snowpack energy balance driving earlier snowmelt in burned forests. While SSA decreases, landscape snow albedo (LSA) increases following fire, as more of the snow-covered surface becomes visible beneath the burned forest canopy, brightening the …

A Collaborative Approach To Cultural Resource Risk Assessment, Preservation, And Prioritization: A Case Study From Sauvie Island, Oregon, Phillip James Daily

Dissertations and Theses

New and increasing threats to cultural heritage resources have pushed archaeologists, land managers, and Indigenous peoples to develop strategies to identify at-risk resources, determine condition, vulnerabilities, and value of said resources, and then provide mitigation and preservation prioritizations and recommendations for the future. One such strategy is the risk assessment approach. Typically, to guide ongoing and future management of vulnerable cultural resources, risk assessments consider preexisting archaeological data, alongside geomorphological and hydrological landform characteristics, to prioritize sites for preservation. While such assessments have been conducted around the globe, they have not been widely applied on the Lower Columbia of Oregon …

Delineating Conservation Areas For Cohabiting Species: An Example Of Vernal Pond Conservation From Fort Stewart In Georgia, United States, Yicheng Wang, Hayri Önal, Sahan T. M. Dissanayake

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Military installations are valuable in global biodiversity conservation as they secure representative ecosystems from land conversion and protect many threatened or endangered species. Selecting suitable areas for biodiversity conservation within military installations is a challenging problem as this must not impede military training activities. The issue gets more complicated when considering multiple cohabiting species in a metacommunity with species dependency. In this paper, we present an example for the conservation of two cohabiting species, Gopher Tortoise (GT) and Gopher Frog (GF), located within the boundaries of a military installation, Fort Stewart, Georgia, United States. The GF depends on both locations …

Road Work Ahead: Using Deep Neural Networks To Estimate The Impacts Of Work Zones, Abbas Rashidi, Ali Hassandokht Mashhadi

TREC Project Briefs

Roadside construction - be it a detour, a closed lane, or a slow weave past workers and equipment - work zones impact traffic flow and travel times on a system-wide level. The ability to predict exactly what those impacts will be, and plan for them, would be a major help to both transportation agencies and road users. Funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, the latest Small Starts project led by Abbas Rashidi of the University of Utah introduces a robust, deep neural network model for analyzing the automobile traffic impacts of construction zones.

Climate Change Adaptation In Conflict‑Affected Countries: A Systematic Assessment Of Evidence, Asha Sitati, E. Joe, C. Grayson, C. Jaime, E. Gilmore, Eranga K. Galappaththi, A. Hudson, G. Nagle Alverio, Idowu Ajibade, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

People affected by conflict are particularly vulnerable to climate shocks and climate change, yet little is known about climate change adaptation in fragile contexts. While climate events are one of the many contributing drivers of conflict, feedback from conflict increases vulnerability, thereby creating conditions for a vicious cycle of conflict. In this study, we carry out a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature, taking from the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI) dataset to documenting climate change adaptation occurring in 15 conflict-affected countries and compare the findings with records of climate adaptation finance flows and climate-related disasters in each country. Academic literature …

The Pacific Sentinel: September 2021, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

The Pacific Sentinel

Editor: Vivian Veidt

Articles in this issue include:

• Letter From the Editor
• The Opaque Places of Cinema
• A “PIG” in Portland
• Jazzed to be Back
• Notes from Behind the Bar
• The Predicament of Mayor Wheeler
• The City of Portland Must Cut Ties With Israel

Marital Status Differences In Suicidality Among Transgender People, Hui Liu, Lindsey Wilkinson

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The suicide rate for transgender people is among the highest of any group in the United States. Yet, we know little about disadvantages or resources available to transgender people to prevent suicide. The overall purpose of this study is to assess how marital status modifies the risk of suicide among transgender people. We analyzed data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey to predict marital status differences in both suicide ideation and suicide attempt in the past year. The analytic sample for suicide ideation included 17,117 transgender respondents (9,182 transwomen and 7,935 transmen), and the analytic sample for suicide attempt was …

Bayesian Assessment Of Northern Alaskan Chronological Issues: Implications For Future Research, Thomas J. Brown, Shelby Anderson, Justin Andrew Junge, Jonathan Duelks

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cultural interaction and exchange across the Bering Strait of northern Alaska played a central role in the emergence of Arctic maritime adaptations. Yet poor chronological control limits our ability to explore processes of cultural change over the last 5000years. We address this problem by synthesizing the available radiocarbon record for the region, carrying out Bayesian analysis of a regional radiocarbon database, and analyzing the BAR-1 (Birnirk) site using new dates published in this paper. Our synthesis and our illustrative analysis of the BAR-1 site highlights several intriguing temporal and spatial trends with implications for interaction between cultural groups. Our analysis …

Ten Years On: Engaging The Public Through The Archaeology Roadshow, Virginia L. Butler, Lyssia Merrifield, Virginia Parks, Shelby Anderson

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Public engagement is a critical part of archaeologists’ tool kit for encouraging people to look beyond the glittering but superficial appeal of “artifacts” to appreciate and respect the peoples and cultures that made them. Engagement takes many forms—from museum exhibits, archaeological site tours, K–12 curriculum, and social media to heritage tourism, documentary films, and more. Whatever the medium or approach, a common goal is to increase the public’s understanding of the broader values archaeology strives to promote (e.g., scientific literacy, cultural diversity, civic engagement, critical thinking) and to open the door for discussion of the ethical and moral issues surrounding …

Global Evidence Of Constraints And Limits To Human Adaptation, Adelle Thomas, Emily Theokritoff, Alexandra Lesnikowski, Diana Reckien, Kripa Jagannathan, Roger Cremades, Donovan Campbell, Elphin Tom Joe, Asha Sitati, Idowu Ajibade, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Constraints and limits to adaptation are critical to understanding the extent to which human and natural systems can successfully adapt to climate change. We conduct a systematic review of 1,682 academic studies on human adaptation responses to identify patterns in constraints and limits to adaptation for different regions, sectors, hazards, adaptation response types, and actors. Using definitions of constraints and limits provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we find that most literature identifies constraints to adaptation but that there is limited literature focused on limits to adaptation. Central and South America and Small Islands generally report greater …

Evaluating Mobility Impacts Of Construction Work Zones On Utah Transportation System Using Machine Learning Techniques, Ali Hassandokht Mashhadi, Abbas Rashidi

TREC Final Reports

Construction work zones are inevitable parts of daily operations at roadway systems. They have a significant impact on traffic conditions and the mobility of roadway systems. The traffic impacts of work zones could significantly vary due to several interacting factors such as work zone factors (work zone location and layout, length of the closure, work zone speed, intensity, and daily active hours); traffic factors (percentage of heavy vehicles, highway speed limit, capacity, mobility, flow, density, congestion, and occupancy); road factors (number of total lanes, number of open lanes, and pavement grade and condition); temporal factors (e.g., year, season, month, weekday, …

“It’S Like 1998 Again”: Why Parents Still Refuse And Delay Vaccines, Jiana L. Ugale, Heather Spielvogle, Christine Spina, Cathryn Perreira, Ben Katz, Barbara Pahud, Phd Amanda F. Dempsey Md, Jeffrey D. Robinson Phd, Kathleen Garrett Ma, Mph Sean T. O’Leary Md, Mph Douglas J. Opel Md

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

We conducted a qualitative study from 2018 to 2019 to update the reasons why US parents’ refuse or delay vaccines. Four focus groups and 4 semi-structured interviews involving 33 primary care pediatric providers were conducted in Washington and Colorado. A thematic analysis was conducted to identify themes related to reasons for parental refusal or delay. Five predominant themes were identified: (1) vaccine safety, (2) relative influence of information sources, decision-makers, and timing, (3) low perceived risk of contracting vaccine-preventable disease, (4) lack of trust, and (5) religious objection. Vaccine safety was the theme mentioned most frequently by providers (N = …

Representation Justice As A Research Agenda For Socio-Hydrology And Water Governance, Melissa Haeffner, Dana E. Hellman, Alida Cantor, Idowu Ajibade, Vinka Oyanedel-Craver, Maura Kelly, Laura Schifman, Lisa Weasel

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We propose representation justice as a theoretical lens for socio-hydrology and water governance studies. An exploratory survey of 496 water sector employees in the United States revealed that self-identifying females felt more strongly discriminated against due to their gender and other social factors, compared to self-identifying males. Responses unveiled how macro- and microaggressions impede career pathways to leadership positions and, therefore, representation. We identify ways in which socio-hydrology can benefit from a representation justice lens by considering the following: (1) how power and politics shape the composition of the water sector and decision-making processes; (2) how available quantitative data do …

Primo's Newspapers Search: Identifying Authentic News Articles In The 21st Century, Kimberly Willson-St. Clair

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

After assessing 60 sophomores' ability to identify news articles, I started a pedagogical journey to address how students can identify and evaluate authentic journalism and news articles rather than blog posts, web sites, vlogs, or propaganda. This presentation covers my instructional shift; especially, in regards to turning on the Newspapers Search scope in Primo. Good journalism informs good citizenship, so I am particularly keen to improve the user's experience discovering the resource type, Newspapers, in Primo.

Agent-Based Activity Generation Of Runners For City Infrastructure Planning, Quang Le

REU Final Reports

Since the pandemic started, many gyms and indoor classes have been shut down to mitigate the spread of Coronavirus. Many people have been forced to get onto pavement streets to get some fresh air while running around and coping with the new reality. There are over 60 million runners in the U.S., and that number is growing rapidly during this time without any sign of stopping once life gets back to normal. In this project, an agent-based model has been developed to generate a set of routes that runners would take in their daily run in a neighborhood of Portland …

Adoption And Use Of E-Grocery Shopping In The Context Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Implications For Transport Systems And Beyond, Gabriella Abou-Zeid

Dissertations and Theses

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically impacted travel for in-person shopping, commute trips, global supply chains, and food business operations. Previously mundane tasks, like shopping for food and household items, became markedly different as new social distancing and mask guidelines were put in place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Concurrently, e-commerce sales in the U.S. skyrocketed. E-grocery pickup and delivery services saw unprecedented expansions. The adoption and use of e-grocery services have implications for equity and mobility, although the nature of the relationship of e-grocery to the latter is still unclear. Enhancing our understanding of the drivers of (and …

Active Rock Glaciers Of The Contiguous United States: Geographic Information System Inventory And Spatial Distribution Patterns, Gunnar Johnson, Heejun Chang, Andrew G. Fountain

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this study we present the Portland State University Active Rock Glacier Inventory (n=10 332) for the contiguous United States, derived from the manual classification of remote sensing imagery (Johnson, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.918585). Individually, these active rock glaciers are found across widely disparate montane environments, but their overall distribution unambiguously favors relatively high, arid mountain ranges with sparse vegetation. While at least one active rock glacier is identified in each of the 11 westernmost states, nearly 88 % are found in just five states: Colorado (n=3889), Montana (n=1813), Idaho (n=1689), Wyoming ( …

The Afghanistan Debacle, Mel Gurtov

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article assesses the US debacle in Afghanistan in light of the Vietnam War and US forever wars.

Motivational Factors And Opportunities To Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Majors Among Native Hawaiian And Other Pacific Islanders (Nhpi), Shanthia Espinosa, Alma M. O. Trinidad

McNair Symposium

Higher education is a contentious space that poses challenges and barriers to the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. This study explores the motivational factors and opportunities to STEM fields among Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders (NHPI). A qualitative method was used in this study, examining public archival data (e.g., videos, recordings, digital information, etc.) of self-identified NHPI scientists, scholar-activists, leaders, and their narratives of entering the STEM fields. Specifically, the portrayal of needs and promotion of NHPI representation and access were examined, including messages that inspire and encourage STEM interest among NHPI youth. This study explores motivation, opportunities, and …