This dissertation investigates the relative importance of firm-specific and
geographic characteristics for export behavior in the Chilean primary and processed
food industries. The first essay develops a new method for measuring geographic
characteristics to account for economic activity in adjacent, but separate spatial units.
In the application to the Chilean...
Interest groups have participated in the American political system since the signing of the U.S. Constitution. Environmental interest groups, a subsection of the American interest group society, have been especially active in national policies since the proliferation of environmental laws and environmental advocacy in the 1960s and 1970s. When environmental...
Oregon’s high hunger and food insecurity rates have been a concern throughout the last decade. These high rates earned Oregon the dubious distinction as the most food insecure with hunger state in the late 1990’s. While Oregon’s ranking has improved in recent years, our understanding of why Oregon ranked so...
Millions of U.S. households experienced hunger in 2005 and millions more experienced food insecurity. Previous research indicates that low-wage work and little social support contribute to food insecurity. Research also suggests that individuals cope by finding alternate food sources and drawing on social support. Further, researchers have found that rural...
The purpose of this research was to determine the role of formative experiences in the home and family pertaining to environment on children's overall environmental beliefs. Students attending environmentally related and non-environmentally related summer camps at a children's science museum served as test subjects in this study. A written instrument...
Numerous development projects are implemented in developing countries to attain economic and ecological development. However, in most cases, the encouraging results observed during the implementation phase terminated with the project period, raising concerns on these projects' sustainability after the project period has ended. This study focuses on this sustainability issue...
Disturbance and microclimate interact to play a central role influencing the composition and structure of plant communities. In this thesis, I examined plant community composition and structure twenty years after high severity wildfires with and without post-fire management (salvage logging, fuel treatment, tree planting, and shrub release) under contrasting microclimatic...
Has consumer activism been successful in its efforts to effect social, political, and economic changes and to empower consumers? This research seeks to answer this question by developing a viable evaluation framework for conceptualizing and measuring impacts of consumer activism. The Political Process Model and New Social Movement Theory provide...
This study documents the occurrence of stereotypical representations of
gender, race, and other characteristics in individuals that appear in advertisements in
the prestigious academic journal Science. It repeats and expands upon a study
conducted by Mary Barbercheck (2001) that analyzed advertisements in Science
between 1995 and 1997. In this study,...
This study examines the long-term role of interference on stand development of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirb.] Franco) and red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.) planted mixtures in the Central Cascades of Oregon, USA. The two species are common associates in naturally regenerated and planted conifer stands in the Pacific Northwest. Due...
I examined the relative roles of biotic and abiotic factors in structuring redband trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss distributions in the South Fork John Day. I first examined the
relationship between the biological traits of the fish assemblage and riparian-geomorphic features in context of prevailing theories of stream ecology stemming from the...
In Prek Toal, a poor subsistence fishing village on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, the conservation organization Osmose is using ecotourism revenues to finance poverty intervention programs and promote conservation in a threatened ecosystem. This thesis examines local perceptions of tourism as a measure of Osmose’s success. Limited awareness of tourism...
The environmental justice framework has been applied to many environmentally negative issues in the past such as toxic storage and disposal facilities, toxic release inventory sites, air quality, transportation, and global climate change. It has not yet been applied to energy production in a quantitative study. This study investigates the...
Conflict among residents of a gateway community regarding the breadth of perceptions of impacts from commercial whitewater rafting and the need for mitigating policies persists despite an intensive planning process and implementation of policies to mitigate negative effects. With an overarching purpose of exploring the nature of conflict, specific study...
I examined factors regulating decomposition rates of red alder (Alnus rubra)) and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) leaf litter in Coast Range riparian areas in western Oregon. Overall, this study was designed to examine the influence that leaf litter quality characteristics and decomposition site treatment have on decomposition rates, to provide a...
Oregon, much like the nation, has historically had a paradoxical relationship to migration. Oregon is famous for the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Oregon Trail. It is, and always has been, greatly affected and inspired by interstate migration yet each successive generation has been less than welcoming to further...
An alternative to traditional roofing, extensive green roofs are contained ecosystems consisting of a drainage layer, a thin media profile which is planted with hardy plant species. Extensive green roof plants must maintain multiple functions while growing in a highly aggregate media at a depth of equal to or less...
This essay examines the low-income weatherization program in rural Oregon, shedding light on difficulties in increasing weatherization services to low-income rural households. This essay also identifies policy limitations. There are strict rules in place for utilizing Department of Energy weatherization funding and some of these rules
are likely to make...
The protection of sensitive resources is an integral part of forest practices regulations in many states, affecting non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners. In Oregon, forest operations on private lands which will conflict with sensitive areas designated "specified resource sites" must meet spatial and temporal requirements to protect those sites. These...
In recent years, economic, social, technological, and environmental changes have all imposed challenges on forest-based communities. This has revived interest in studying these communities to understand their ability to tackle these challenges. This study is built around a case study of an industrial forest-based community and aims at characterizing the...
In the United States during the last 30 years there has been a shift from extractive natural resource-based economies of the Old West to a New West defined by environmental protection. Over the past century, a growing national support for environmental protection has influenced a lengthening list of national and...
Cultural competence is a topic that concerns social scientists and medical anthropologists who pay attention to demographic changes and health disparities. This study demonstrates practical approaches to developing cultural competence in medical education by using factors from the social environment to develop protocols for action. With current concerns in domestic...
Natural resource data are typically non-linear and complex, yet modeling methods often utilize statistical analysis techniques, such as regression, that are insufficient for use on such data. This research proposes an innovative modeling method based on pattern recognition techniques borrowed from the field of machine learning. These techniques make no...
Co-management is considered an alternative approach to fisheries management,
however, not all co-managed fisheries have been successful. Most studies discussing the
success and failure of co-management have emphasized economic and social attributes of
success and failure, such as fishery rights and institutional arrangements. The effect on
co-management of biological characteristics,...