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Bottled Water
No full textBottled water has transformed from a niche product into the most-consumed packaged beverage worldwide. This commodity is linked to broader struggles over human rights and social justice, the question of who owns nature, and the future of public goods. Bottled water\u27s negative environmental externalities include high energy and carbon footprints and major plastic waste pollution caused by disposal of hundreds of billions of single-serving plastic bottles. These dynamics have generated oppositional movements that are both contesting bottled water consumption and resisting the industry\u27s extraction of groundwater. Recent scholarship emphasizes bottled water\u27s impacts on public tap water and its relationship to social inequality. In the USA, declining federal investment has caused deterioration in public water infrastructure, which contributes to high-profile crises of unsafe tap water, where bottled water makes a prominent appearance. The widespread shift from tap to bottled water also heightens existing racial/ethnic and class inequalities
Helmholtz Cage: Software Development and Implementation for CubeSat Testing
No full textThis paper details the successful development and deployment of a Helmholtz cage system, designed to produce precisely controlled magnetic fields for testing and calibration purposes. The core focus was on creating a robust, modular software architecture enabling independent current modulation on each axis, comprehensive serial communication between multiple microcontrollers, and real-time data acquisition from the MR3 magnetometer. All software components, including the serial communication drivers, control algorithms, command line interface, and calibration routines, were developed from the ground up. The system was fully operational upon completion: all hardware components functioned as intended, serial communication with each subsystem was reliable, and calibration routines yielded consistent and repeatable results. The MR3 magnetometer successfully provided field strength data, confirming the ability to read and interpret magnetic data via the serial interface. Although the attempt to simulate the Earth\u27s magnetic field vector revealed measurable deviations, this discrepancy is believed to stem from calibration errors rather than environmental interference and hardware limitations. Overall, the project delivered a complete and functioning Helmholtz cage platform with foundational software infrastructure, offering a replicable model for future student and research use in aerospace CubeSat testing and Earth field simulation
A Clinical Training Program for Auditory-Perceptual Rating of Connected Speech in Aphasia.
No full textAlthough discourse analysis has been receiving growing interest among aphasia researchers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs), several key challenges, such as limited time, insufficient training, and a lack of accessible tools, preclude its practical application in clinical settings. To address these barriers, we developed and evaluated a clinical training program for Auditory-Perceptual Rating of Connected Speech in Aphasia (APROCSA; Casilio et al., 2019), a time-efficient and psychometrically robust transcriptionless system for quantifying a range of speech-language impairment features
Research as Relation: Ubuntu Ethics and the Rehumanization of Knowledge
No full textDr. Trevor Makhetha, PSU Black Studies Center Visiting Scholar, explores Ubuntu as a methodological orientation that redefines what it means to do research in socially fractured worlds.
Against traditions that treat knowledge as property and participants as data, Makhetha proposes research as relation: a practice of co-creation grounded in the ethical recognition of our shared humanity. Drawing on critical ethnographic work with marginalized youth in South Africa, he examines how Ubuntu offers not simply an ethical add-on, but a re-centering of ontology and epistemology around interconnectedness, care, and accountability. Through stories from fieldwork, he demonstrates how research encounters can become spaces of mutual transformation, where the line between researcher and participant softens in favor of collective meaning-making.
This approach insists that knowledge must emerge from relationships of trust, listening, and humility. Ultimately, the talk argues that rehumanizing knowledge production requires us to rethink the very purpose of research: not as the pursuit of mastery or discovery, but as a living, relational act of justice and hope.
Dr. Makhetha presented on November 24, 2025, at Portland State University\u27s Pan African Commons.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/black_bag_series/1026/thumbnail.jp
Sound, Touch, and Place: an Exploratory Study of the Potential for Emotive Cognitive Mapping Through the Use of Audio Description and Tactile Objects at a National Memorial
No full textAudio description, tactile objects, and memorial sites are often studied separately for their communicative and emotive potential without consideration of potential multimodal connections existing among people, technologies, and solemn public places. This study’s novel mixed-methods approach uses site tours, surveys, think-aloud protocol, semi-structured interviews, and observations to develop rich and holistic understandings of such complex multimodal site visits at Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawai‘i by people who are DeafBlind, blind, or with low vision. Several themes emerged in the grounded empirical data gathered during the tour, afterward, and during an interview one month later, including findings that bridged emotions, inclusion, and place-based narratives
Accounting for Stillbirths in Maternal Health Metrics: a Cross-Country Analysis research in Context
No full textBackground: Live birth is only one of four potential pregnancy outcomes, alongside stillbirth, miscarriage, and induced abortion. While morbidity and mortality associated with all pregnancy outcomes are included in the numerator of many maternal metrics, often only live births are included in the denominator. This inconsistency makes interpreting trends challenging and may exacerbate the deprioritisation of monitoring other pregnancy outcomes. We assess the effect of using (1) total births (live births and stillbirths) or (2) total pregnancies (total births plus miscarriages/induced abortions) as the denominator on estimates of maternal and pregnancy-related mortality ratios (MMR and PRMR). Methods: Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted from 1996 to 2023, we estimated the proportion of pregnancies reported to end in live birth, stillbirth, or miscarriage/induced abortion in full pregnancy histories (DHS-VIII) or reproductive calendars (DHS-VII and earlier) for 46 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean, and Oceania. We calculated MMR and PRMR from the DHS sibling survival histories, adjusting the denominator by the reported distribution of pregnancy outcomes to account for either total births or total pregnancies. Findings: There was substantial cross-country heterogeneity in the proportion of pregnancies reported as ending in a live birth, ranging from 70% (Cambodia 2021) to 96% (Papua New Guinea 2017). Pregnancies reported as ending in stillbirth ranged from 0.3% (Timor-Leste 2016) to 4.1% (Lesotho 2014). Variability across countries might reflect differences in the distribution of pregnancy outcomes, temporal trends, and reporting practices. These differences result in non-uniform biases from using live births as the denominator. Using total births reduced the MMR and PRMR by up to 2.8% (Cote-d\u27ivoire 2021). Using total pregnancies reduced the MMR and PRMR by up to 23% (Cambodia 2021). Interpretation: Pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality can occur with any pregnancy outcome, not only live births. Progress in the availability of global stillbirth estimates means using total births as the denominator in maternal metrics is increasingly feasible in some countries and, in turn, could further strengthen momentum to institutionalise stillbirth reporting in civil registration systems. As the end of the SDG era approaches, the use of a more conceptually accurate maternal denominator based on total births should be explored in parallel with existing measures. However, better estimates of miscarriage and induced abortion are needed before total pregnancies can be used in global maternal metrics
The Relationship Between Perceived Stress, Psychological Distress and Thwarted Belongingness Among Military Service Members
No full textSuicide remains a leading cause of death among members of the military, with psychological distress, perceived stress and thwarted belongingness emerging as key variables which impact this behavior. This thesis aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived stress, psychological distress and thwarted belongingness in a population of Active Duty Army Service Members (ADASM) at baseline and longitudinally. The Resilience-Supportive Leadership Training (RESULT) dataset was originally collected to assess the effectiveness of an intervention in the military. However, this thesis is a secondary data analysis of this dataset, including 273 ADASM participants. The K6 psychological distress test was used to measure psychological distress, the perceived stress scale was used to measure perceived stress, and the Thwarted Belongingness subscale of the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire measured Thwarted Belongingness. Correlations and regressions were performed and used to analyze the hypothesized relationships. It was found that higher levels of psychological distress was associated with higher levels of thwarted belongingness at baseline and longitudinally. Similarly, it was found that higher levels of perceived stress was associated with higher levels of thwarted belongingness both at baseline and longitudinally. These findings support theoretical models emphasizing interpersonal risk factors for suicide and underscore the need for screening and intervention strategies addressing both stress and social disconnection in military populations
Is Anoxia Tolerance a Common Trait in Fish Cell Lines?
No full textMost vertebrates need a constant supply of oxygen to sustain life, with disruption to O2 supply or delivery quickly leading to cell and tissue damage and death. Many aquatic species are able to withstand long periods without O2 due to evolving to survive the regular periods of hypoxia and anoxia in their natural habitat. The Austrofundulus limnaeus, or the annual killifish, in particular have shown the highest anoxia tolerance in all vertebrates and is a promising model for developing effective treatments for anoxia-related damage, such as heart attacks and strokes. The A. limnaeus are not the only fish with anoxia tolerance, as many other fish have evolved to survive similarly harsh environments. We aimed to determine if other fish have similar anoxia tolerance by comparing the cell lines of LtE from the California grunion (Leuresthes tenuis), OmB from the Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus), ZEM2S from the zebrafish (Danio rerio), and WS40NE from the annual killifish (Austrofundulus limnaeus). Cells from the LtE, OmB, and ZEM2S cell lines were found to not have as high of anoxia tolerance compared to WS40NE, but were found to have significantly higher tolerance than mammalian cells, surviving 11 days of anoxia compared to 3 days in other mammalian cells. This suggests that A. limnaeus has unique abilities beyond other fishes in terms of their anoxia tolerance
Controlling Corsets: Commerce, Dress Reform, Medicine, and Misogyny in Nineteenth-Century Women\u27s Dress
No full textIn the nineteenth century, women\u27s dress depended on the usage of the corset. Without it, a woman\u27s outfit was uncomfortable to wear and largely impractical. Because of how necessary the garment was to women\u27s clothing, it became the focus of criticism from many different angels, including but not limited to the medical field, dress reform, and businesses which manufactured and sold corsets to consumers. These criticisms, although directed at the corset, were often thinly veiled insults to the female sex, and reflected larger societal fears about women\u27s places in society as women\u27s liberation movements began to gain more traction. It is also for this reason that the critical ideas people were sharing of the corset were mostly unoriginal, as this era of women\u27s clothing was merely a new avenue for relevant pre-existing misogynistic rhetoric to be expressed. This thesis examines these ideas and the different perspectives which they came from by considering primary sources such as medical journals, scientific articles, and business advertisements. Despite usually being either written about or written for women, these sources were almost exclusively authored by men. This examination considers how male voices dominated conversations about women\u27s bodies and appropriated the corset to position it as either necessary to keeping women\u27s dress unchanged and traditional, or as dangerous and anti-woman, as decided by men\u27s standards. In either argument, the garment was weaponized by those who did not wear it with the intention to control women\u27s bodies
Analyzing the Intention to Volunteer Through the Integrated Model of Behavioral Prediction
No full textNationwide, a significant portion of adults lack basic, functional literacy skills. To combat functional illiteracy in the United States, non-profit organizations who focus on literacy require the services of volunteers. In Portland, Oregon, the Portland Literacy Council (PLC) is responsible for training volunteer tutors to help people learning English as a second language (ESL) and native English speakers who want to improve their literacy skills. The integrated model of behavioral prediction (IMBP) is a communication theory that identifies the core factors that can lead to the intention to perform a behavior. The connection between volunteering in literacy environments and IMBP can be categorized through the analysis of current PLC volunteers. Through this analysis, long-term volunteer intentions can be predicted based on a variety of factors in accordance with IMBP. This qualitative study used semi-structured focus groups to discover the constructs within IMBP most salient to the demographic of older adult volunteers and reveals several factors that could identify why this population are primary candidates for volunteerism. The results of this study revealed that the most salient predictors of volunteer intentions are attitudes, self-efficacy, and exposure to perceived norms, which require the added variables of environmental constraints and skills to reach long-term volunteer retention