Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Focal Point, Volume 08 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

The 103rd Congress has set itself an ambitious agenda. Between now and October, five Congressional committees are to report out their versions of health care reform legislation, from which a single piece of legislation must be written and forwarded to President Clinton for his signature.

Before The Flood: The Golden Volta Basin, E. Kofi Agorsah

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Northern Volta basin has engaged the attention of major research projects in the last ten years with greater Intensity than has been known in the history of research in the area. Explanation of the cultural development as well as connections or relationships between ethnic groups, their geographical distribution and settlement patterning, and the nature and mechanism of functional adaptation in the area are issues that appear to have been the main foci of investigation.

Conclusions based on the data available emphasized the northern Volta Basin as an important area for the development of early cultural traditions in that part …

The Myth Of The "Battered Husband Syndrome", Jack C. Straton

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The most recurrent backlash against women's safety is the myth that men are battered as often as women. Suzanne Steinmetz created this myth with her 1977 study of 57 couples, in which four wives were seriously beaten but no husbands were beaten. By a convoluted thought process she concluded that her finding of zero battered husbands implied that men just don't report abuse and therefore 250,000 American husbands are battered each year by their wives, a figure that exploded to 12 million in the subsequent media feeding frenzy.

Men have never before been shy in making their needs known, so …

Planning The Oregon Way : A Twenty-Year Evaluation, Carl Abbott, Deborah A. Howe, Sy Adler

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Oregon's pioneering land use system is nationally recognized and serves as a valuable model and benchmark for other states. This volume examines the Oregon system, describes its strengths and weaknesses, and gives recommendations for the future.

Settlement Patterns In The Portland Region: A Historical Overview, Carl Abbott

Portland Regional Planning History

Cities exist because they serve two basic functions--to generate economic value and to sustain social and cultural values. In the most fundamental sense, the interaction of these two urban roles determines the growth of metropolitan areas and patterns of land use and settlement within those urban areas.

Within this framework of metropolitan functions, five factors have strongly affected American urban settlement patterns. The first section of this report briefly introduces these broad forces. The central section traces in detail the ways in which the factors have shaped settlement and land use in the Portland area over the last 150 years. …

The Determinants Of Women's Work: A Case Study From Three Urban Low-Income Communities In Amman, Jordan, Taghrid Khuri Tubbeh

Dissertations and Theses

This study addresses the determinants of women's economic activity in three low income communities in Amman, the capital of Jordan. These communities represent what is typically referred to as "pockets of urban poverty." Besides addressing the demographic and socio-economic variables, the study identifies and includes cultural variables in a model of female labor force participation. Modern economic systems developed definitions and measurements of productivity that render the majority of women's work as non-productive. Activities within the domestic sphere that do not earn monetary returns are not measured as productive economic activities, and hence are dropped from the calculations of gross …

Creating Community Through Urban Gardens, Jay Gratchner, Susan Hartnett, Susan Kroll, Laurie Nicholson

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

"Creating Community Through Urban Gardening" represents the commitment of four individuals to assist the Oregon Food Bank (OFB) in its efforts to meet the food needs of the people of Oregon. The project was specifically designed to assist OFB in achieving its strategic goals which seek to "triple the amount of quality food acquired and made available to disadvantaged people" and to "impact the conditions underlying hunger and to promote the empowerment of disadvantaged people to achieve economic independence." The work of the project explored strategies for an urban gardening program that could be implemented by OFB. This report is …

Oregon Primary Care Physicians' Support For Health Care Reform, Timothy Alan Baker

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation studies Oregon primary care physicians' attitudes toward health care reform. Two models of reform are examined: one, health care rationing such as that proposed by the Oregon Health Plan (OHP); and, two, support for national health insurance (NHI).

This work examines the necessity for changing the present health care system, traced from the early origins of the medical profession to the present day health care "crisis." The high cost of health care is examined and an overview of the OHP is provided, including citations from John Kitzhaber, M.D., author of the plan.

Overall, Oregon primary care physicians overwhelmingly …

Private Profit Versus Public Service: Competing Demands In Urban Transportation History And Policy, Portland, Oregon, 1872-1970, Martha J. Bianco

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is a case study of the history of urban transportation policy in Portland, Oregon, between 1872 and 1970. The emphasis is on mass transit policy formulated and implemented by the private and public sectors as response to crises within both the local transit industry and the urban political economy. These crises are placed in the context of the continuing conflict between the industry's right to profit and its obligation to meet the competing demands of its constituencies: ridership's demands for low fares and comprehensive service; labor's demands for competitive wages; downtown businesses' demands for peak-hour service; and the …

Letter From Ernie To Neil, Ernest Bonner

Ernie Bonner Collection

No abstract provided.

Output-Based Performance Measures For The North Carolina Alliance For Competitive Technologies, Sheila A. Martin

Institute of Metropolitan Studies Publications

The North Carolina Alliance for Competitive Technologies (NC ACTs) is an organization operated by the state of North Carolina to coordinate technology development and, deployment activities in the state. The mission of NC ACTs is to apply innovation, technology, and technical resources to promote economic growth in the state. NC ACTs will operate as a central, strategic organization to guide existing resources and to develop new resources when necessary.

To accomplish its mission, NC ACTs must coordinate institutions and organizations that currently offer technology development and deployment into a rational, customer-driven system that measures and rewards results. Timely, reliable assessment …

The Spatial Distribution Of Ground Stone Tools As A Marker Of Status Differentials In A Chinookan Plank House On The Lower Columbia River, John William Wolf

Dissertations and Theses

Social status was an integral part of the social structure of Northwest Coast societies. The presence of ranked social structures and household space based on rank is reported in the ethnographic literature. Archaeologists have long searched for independent and verifiable means to infer social structure from archaeological deposits. Burial goods have been used to identify status differences. Do other items of material culture also reflect such differences?

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether or not the distribution of certain tools recovered from a Chinookan plank house on the lower Columbia River paralleled the household residence location that …

A Simultaneous Route-Level Transit Patronage Model: Demand, Supply, And Inter-Route Relationship, Zhongren Peng

Dissertations and Theses

It is observed that transit riders are responding to service changes while transit planning is responding to ridership changes, or that transit patronage and service supply are highly interrelated. It is also noticed that transit riders transfer from route to route, the introduction of new service may draw some riders from the existing routes, which implies transit patronage on a route is also affected by other parallel and intersecting routes. An analytic tool is needed to examine these complex relationships in the transit system. This study has developed a quantitative model by incorporating these interactions into a simultaneous system. The …

Portland's Multifamily Recycling Program: A Study Of Coproduction Policy Implementation And Citizen Involvement, William Barry Messer

Dissertations and Theses

This study is on coproduction as a governing policy instrument. Coproduction can be understood as the joint production of services by local officials and individual citizens intended to raise the quality and or amount of service provision. The concept of coproduction as developed in this study suggests that urban services are not simply created by officials and delivered to a passive public. Rather that actions of citizens are an integral part of the service production process. The study purposes are two-fold: (1) to construct a model of coproduction which provides a basis by which citizen involvement in the provision of …

Total Quality Management: The Case For The Public Sector: A Comparative Study Of The Implementation Of Total Quality Management In Three Health Care Organizations, Zayed Mohammed Abu

Dissertations and Theses

Total quality management [TQM] is an approach to improving the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the whole organization through the improvement of the organizational processes and those who perform them. There has been a rising interest among public sector professionals in examining the applicability and usefulness of TQM methods to public organizations. This research provides descriptive information about the experience of three health care organizations that vary in terms of ownership, whether being publicly or privately owned, with implementing TQM. Participants at these organizations were interviewed, and/or surveyed and observed. The study provides a narrative description of each organization's experience …

Aids-Preventative Behaviors And The Psychological Costs Of Behavior Change, Howard Balshem

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the effects of behavior change on psychological health among gay and bisexual men of Portland, Oregon who were at risk for contracting AIDS. Cross-sectional self-reports of personal experiences were obtained in Summer, 1991. Sexual behaviors were used as predictors of self-efficacy, depression, anxiety, and subjective well-being. Adopting safer sexual behaviors was psychologically more costly than continuing to engage in high risk behaviors, or long-term adherence to safer behaviors. Behaviors amenable to short-term change differed from those conducive to long-term maintenance. Behavior change was also found to have a beneficial effect on self-efficacy.

These findings suggest that behavior …

The Role Of The Chinese News Media In The 1989 Pro-Democracy Movement, Mei Liao

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the role of the Chinese news media in the 1989 pro-democracy movement. The three functions of this thesis are: 1) to provide evidence of changes in the pro-democracy movement; 2) to identify corresponding changes in the press coverage of the movement; 3) to examine what relationship exists between changes in the movement and changes in the press coverage of the movement.

Memo To Ernis And Carly Houk From Ernie Bonner, Ernest Bonner

Ernie Bonner Collection

No abstract provided.

Ethnic Identity Changes Among Hong Kong Chinese Americans, Pui-Lam Lo

Dissertations and Theses

During the last ten years, the number of Hong Kong Chinese migrating to the U.S. has increased. These new immigrants, with knowledge and life experiences shaped by the urban metropolis of Hong Kong, have begun to influence different aspects of Chinese communities in U.S. cities. A study of this group of Hong Kong Chinese provides a better understanding of how they have adapted to their new environment and how they have come to recognize themselves as Hong Kong Chinese Americans. In reviewing the available literature, very few studies have dealt with the identity changes of this group of people. Hence, …

Development Of High-Technology Industries In The Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan Area: An Analysis Of Regional And Intraregional Factors Affecting High-Tech Firm Locations, Ulf Eichner

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis aims to investigate local conditions of high-tech industry development in the Portland/Vancouver CMSA. To do so, the research proceeds in four major stages. First, it is analyzed how historical factors contributed to the rise of high-tech industries in the CMSA. The second part consists of mapping the distribution pattern of hightech establishments. The U.S. Bureau of Census' County Business Patterns statistics are used to calculate the number of high-tech establishments and employees by branch (SIC code) and county; two high-tech directories help to identify the exact firm locations. Thirdly, an explanatory set of locational factors is established, based …

Evaluation Of Information Resource Management: Measuring Change In A Federal Bureaucracy, Randolph D. Perrin

Dissertations and Theses

This is a case study of a federal bureaucracy and its Information Resource Management (IRM) organization. The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal power marketing agency and part of the Department of Energy, significantly impacts the western United States. BPA is responsible for developing electric power resources, transmission of electric resources, power conservation programs, and fish and wildlife programs.

The focus of the study is the perception of the quality of information supplied to management, assuming that better information makes better decisions. The study uses a pre-experimental research design to evaluate the satisfaction executive and middle management with information they …

Portals - The Portland Area Library System: The Promise Of A Virtual Research Library, Gretta E. Siegel

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

About a year ago, someone from eastern Washington phoned and asked me about PORTALS. He was working with a group of libraries who were building a consortium and thought that PORTALS would be a good model to look at. I was a bit perplexed - yes, I was involved with PORTALS, but the problem was, it didn't really exist as anything that I could, point to and say, here, this is PORTALS. Now, a year later, I can proudly say that we have indeed metamorphosed into something identifiable, though the evolution continues. This article will attempt to describe what PORTALS …

Columbia South Shore Natural Resource Protection Plan Mitigation - Guidelines And Actions, Portland (Or.). Bureau Of Planning

Portland City Archives

Ordinance No. 167127 passed by Council November 17, 1993.

The Relationship Between Cognitive Skills Measured By Piagetian Tasks At Age 2 And Linguistic Skills Measured By An Expressive Language Test At Age 4 In Normal And Late Talkers, Rebecca Jayne Laplante

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cognitive skills as measured by Piagetian tasks at approximately 2 years of age and expressive and receptive language scores from tests administered to the same children 2 years later. The questions this study sought to answer were: 1. Is there a significant difference in the performance of normal children and late-talking children on Piagetian cognitive assessment at age 2? 2. Is there a significant relationship between the cognitive scores at age 2 and language scores at age 4 in each of the two diagnostic groups? Sixty-four subjects participated in …

The United States-Japan Security Treaty Of 1951: An Essay On The Origins Of Postwar Japanese-American Relation, Christopher S. Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

The early September day in 1951 that brought the Pacific War to an official end, with the signing of a treaty of peace, concluded as representatives of Japan and the United States signed the Bilateral Security Treaty. The security treaty symbolized new realities of international relations, just as the peace treaty had buried the old. By cementing into place a strategic alliance between the former Pacific antagonists, the treaty represented the great and lasting achievement of postwar American diplomacy in Asia. Nevertheless, the treaty was both the outcome and the perpetuation of a stereotyped and lopsided relationship, now fixed firmly …

Determining The Property Value Impact Of Landfills, Okwuchukwu Gerald Uba

Dissertations and Theses

The decline in property value can be due to owner's act or exogenous act from the operation of landfills. Landfill neighbors, especially home owners, perceive landfill operation to pose environmental safety problem such as ground water contamination and methane gas leakage that could affect home value.

Owners of landfills, especially those landfills that accept only dry waste (limited purpose landfill), claim that since their facilities meet the requirements of environmental regulations and the type of waste they accept could not possibly produce methane gas and leachate there is no property value impact of their facilities.

Several studies have shown that …

City Club Of Portland Report On Ballot Measure 1: The Sales Tax Initiative, City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.

Comparative Analysis Of Resettlement Policies In Third World Countries, Abrahim Jawad Al-Khalisi

Dissertations and Theses

Settlement policy in the Third World has been stimulated by the availability of public land. This availability of public land has prompted many Third World countries to adopt policies or schemes called resettlement, transmigration, or land development. These have been presented as potential means for addressing numerous agendas held by Third World countries. Settlement policies have been used to increase agricultural production and make idle land productive. Spatial imbalances of population distribution have been addressed via settlement policies. For national security, settlement policies have been used to exploit frontier lands. Solutions to serious political problems including lack of agricultural self-sufficiency, …

Cities And Automobile Dependence: An Empirical Examination Of Density And Automobile Dependence Relationship And Their Underlying Factors, Musaad Abdullah Al-Mosaind

Dissertations and Theses

Over the last several decades, low-density development and increasing levels of automobile dependence have become two of the major problems facing many urban areas. While they have significantly improved urbanites' mobility, freedom, and social contacts, and have expanded the ranges of economic activities, they have also brought numerous problems and externalities. Mitigating their negative externalities through appropriate policies necessitates the examination of their relationship and the effect of other urban elements. This research examines the relationship between density and automobile dependence and its underlying factors within cities. It examines the effects of quantifiable factors at three levels of analysis: regional, …

The Voices I Never Hear: Communication Apprehension And Associated Nonverbal Behaviors In The Primary School Child, Linda Dunn

Dissertations and Theses

The confidence to communicate orally with others is the first requisite for verbal interaction. Anxiety which occurs in anticipation of speaking with others or while engaged in speaking hinders interaction, and is referred to as communication apprehension. This study examines levels of communication apprehension among a sample primary school population and the possible relationship between such levels and frequencies of nonverbal behaviors called self-adaptors that may be associated with the anxiety. Greater awareness of communication apprehension in children is justified in light of research that suggests it is negatively related to academic achievement in elementary school students. A four-month field~study …