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...
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...
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...
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...
Tourism development has expanded in Oregon coast communities and in rural communities elsewhere in the nation. This expansion has brought economic gains, but has also brought social costs. The identification and management of tourism's actual and perceived social impacts has received significant attention. This dissertation presents two approaches that extend...
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...
Depleted species of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) from the Northeast Pacific experience high discard mortality due to "barotrauma," induced from the rapid change in pressure during capture. Research suggests rockfish have the potential to survive barotrauma if immediately recompressed, but the potential for long-term recovery is unknown. In this project, we...
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,...
Human development researchers consider adolescence a rich time for interest development and identity exploration. A relatively new movement in the Free-Choice Learning (FCL) arena, the Maker movement, offers learners interest-driven, experiential, often collaborative, and process-oriented activities ranging from game design (computer-based and otherwise) and robotics, to sewing LEDs into clothing...
A fundamental problem that emerges during the planning of a city or neighborhood is how to prioritize sustainable development criteria and where to focus efforts. Solving this problem is a complex task requiring an integrated approach, which considers environmental, economic, and social criteria, as well as stakeholder preferences. Given the...
This dissertation examines the spatial distribution of park access by type in relation to trajectories of gentrification in Seattle from 1990 to 2010. The dissertation includes 5 Chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of the literature that motivated this research. The second, third and fourth chapters are research papers...
Climate change and the increase in meteorological drought have generated global concern over the persistence of ecosystems already in decline from decreased moisture. Evidence suggests dryland ecosystems have been more impacted by drought because of their tightly coupled growth-water relationships and high sensitivity to environmental shift. Removal of competing vegetation...
This dissertation seeks to understand Yi farmers’ livelihoods in the midst of an agricultural transition in Yunnan, Southwest China. This dissertation examines a community’s traditional knowledge related to wild edible plants (WEPs), analyzes socio-ecological vulnerability and resilience in the face of agricultural transition from subsistence farming to cash cropping, and...
The topics in this dissertation center on the snow processes that dominate mountain environments in the Western U.S. and Alaska, particularly in locations lacking long-term observational datasets or locales that are difficult to access in-person. Some are currently glacierized or have been glaciated in the recent past. Each of the...
Diverse scientific fields collect multiple time series data to investigate the dynamical behavior of complex systems: atmospheric and climate science, geophysics, neuroscience, epidemiology, ecology, and environmental science. Identifying patterns of mutual dependence among such data generates valuable knowledge that can be applied either for inferential or forecasting purposes. Vector autoregressive...
Relative to other systems in the PNW, the rain-dominated, coastal watersheds of western Oregon have shallow aquifers. Given the seasonality of streamflow and storage limitations in coastal, rain-dominated watersheds, changes in the temporal patterns of precipitation have the potential to magnify the risk of extreme streamflow conditions during both high-...
