Urban water use arises from a mix of scale-dependent biophysical and socioeconomic factors. In Portland, Oregon, single-family residential water use exhibits a tightly coupled relationship with summertime weather, although this relationship varies with land use patterns across households and neighborhoods. This thesis developed a multilevel regression model to evaluate the relative importance of weather variability, parcel land use characteristics, and neighborhood geographic context in explaining single-family residential water demand patterns in the Portland metropolitan area. The model drew on a high-resolution panel dataset of weekly mean summer water use over five years (2001-2005) for a sample of 460 single-family households spanning an urban-to-suburban gradient. Water use was found to be most elastic with respect to parcel-scale building size. Building age was negatively related to water use at both the parcel and neighborhood scale. Half the variation in water use can be attributed to between-household factors. Between-neighborhood variation exerted a modest but statistically significant effect. The analysis decomposed household temperature sensitivity into four components: a fixed effect common to all households, a household-specific deviation from the fixed effect, a separate extreme heat effect, and a land use effect, where lot size exaggerated the effect of temperature on water use. Results suggested that land use planning may be an effective non-price mechanism for long-range management of peak demand, as land use decisions have water use implications. The combined effects of population growth, urbanization, and climate change expose water providers to risk of water stress. Modeling fine-grain relationships among heat, land use, and water use across scales plays a role in long-range climate change planning and adaptation.

The volcanic stratigraphy and petrography is described for a 46 km2 area on the southern flank of Mount Jefferson in the north-central part of the Oregon High Cascades. Here, volcanic processes have been active throughout Quaternary time, resulting in complex stratigraphic relationships. In addition, three formerly recognized glaciations and a two-phase period of neoglaciation have eroded the terrain, depositing tills in contact or interstratified with the volcanic units. Collectively, these processes and the resulting deposits are characteristic of High Cascades development.

Over 115 miles of rock revetments that serve to protect river banks have been constructed in the Willamette Basin. In this study the spring and summer bird use of Willamette Basin revetments is examined. Revetments that had not been recently cleared of most woody vegetation and blackberries were found to have significantly greater total and breeding bird use than cleared revetments. Possible factors affecting bird use, such as vegetation on revetments and vegetation adjacent to revetments are examined using linear regression analysis. The results of this study are compared with results of previous work in riparian forests along the Columbia River. It is concluded that revetments represent significant avian habitat, especially for "edge species," and that present maintenance practices involving removal of vegetation adversely affect bird use.

This research examines the use of archived weigh-in-motion (WIM) data to estimate link-based heavy-vehicle emissions for Oregon highways. This research combined data on vehicle speed, highway grade, and gross vehicle weight and relationship between these elements in published research to estimate the carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from trucks. Sensitivity analysis was conducted on the impact of uphill grade and gross vehicle weight on truck speed and emissions. The results suggest that with the data available in the weigh-in-motion archive and with a reasonable set of assumptions, link-based emissions for heavy-duty vehicles can be estimated. The carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions are found to increase when the speed, gross vehicle weight, or road grade increases. The relationship between nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and vehicle weight was estimated to be linear. The potential to estimate the link-based heavy-vehicle emissions for Oregon highways using the weigh-in-motion data archive, which was mainly designed to estimate truck counts, has a great value in setting new measures to mitigate the heavy-vehicle emissions.

This research was undertaken at the request of the the St. Martin Day Nursery staff and advisory board to assist them in assessing what the consequences of relocating their day care center would be to the present users and possible future users. It was requested that special emphasis be given to where users live and work and the method of transportation they used to bring children to and from the center. Therefore, our research has been exploratory, planned more to search for answers and to attempt to generate hypotheses than to test hypotheses. It was not our purpose to designate where the future location of the St. Martin Day Nursery should be, but rather to point up some things about convenience factors which the Advisory Board might wish to consider in reaching their decision.

Middleman minority theory explains why certain minorities in America have made impressive socioeconomic achievements. It is found that their occupational patterns play an important role in their socioeconomic success. Middleman minorities usually concentrate in certain occupations and dominate these occupations. The term "middleman" indicates that such ethnic minorities are functioning as middleman between lower and upper class, customer and producer in the host society. The three preconditions through which middleman minorities get into these occupations are cultural, contextual and situational variables. The cultural variables concern mainly the homeland of the minorities, the value system of their native culture, and the economic background of the minorities. The second precondition consists of situational variables such as immigrants' intention to return to their homeland. This intention of being "sojourners" prevents assimilation of the ethnic minorities into the host culture. The hostile attitudes and strong structural discrimination are the contextual variables of the third precondition. Structural discrimination closes many job opportunities of the minorities.

Japanese Americans have been identified as one of the most successful minority groups in the United States of America because of their achievement of high socioeconomic status. This study focuses on the degree and process of assimilation of Japanese Americans in this country in order to reconsider multiple assimilation theories of minority groups. Three questions were raised: 1) the extent to which both the second and third generation of Japanese Americans are assimilated into American society; 2) how far the third generation is assimilated compared to the second generation; and 3) what the identity of the second and third generation are.

The Littlefield Rhyolite consists of widespread, high-temperature, hotspot-related rhyolitic lavas that erupted in eastern Oregon contemporaneous to late-stage Grande Ronde Basalt lavas. The estimated total volume of erupted rhyolites is ~100 km3 covering ~850 km2. The focus of this study has been to investigate the stratigraphy and petrology of the Littlefield Rhyolite and whether field and geochemical relationships exist to help constrain the timing and storage sites of Grande Ronde Basalt magmas. Although often indistinguishable in the field, our data reveal that the Littlefield Rhyolite consists of two geochemically distinct rhyolite flow packages that are designated here as lower and upper Littlefield Rhyolite, according to stratigraphic relationships in the Malheur River Gorge. Rarely viewed in sequence, these rhyolites are distinguished by Zr, Ba, Nb, TiO2 and FeO contents and 40Ar/39Ar ages (16.12±0.04 and 16.16±0.10 Ma versus 16.01±0.06 and 16.05±0.04 Ma). Rhyolites known either as ‘rhyolite of Cottonwood Mountain’ or ‘rhyolite of Bully Creek Canyon’, and which are exposed around Cottonwood Mountain, northwest of Vale, have compositions similar to samples of lower Littlefield Rhyolite. Additionally, single crystal 40Ar/39Ar ages of two samples (16.12±0.07, 16.20±0.08) are statistically indistinguishable. Among units sandwiched between the lower and upper Littlefield Rhyolite are several lava flows and a one-meter thick agglutinated spatter deposit of Hunter Creek Basalt. The spatter deposit thickens to 10s of meters over a distance of 800 m where the deposit is strongly welded. We recognize this as a venting site of Hunter Creek Basalt, and that Hunter Creek Basalt is geochemically and petrographically similar to, and contemporaneous with, late-stage Grande Ronde Basalt. Ages of Littlefield Rhyolite flow units constrain the timing of eruption of Hunter Creek Basalt to an age span of ~100k years, between 16.05 – 16.12 Ma. One local variant of late-stage Grand Ronde Basalt is icelanditic (~62 wt. % SiO2) and is found at a number of places including a location near the southern extent of the upper Littlefield Rhyolite. Geochemical modeling strongly suggests that icelandite lavas resulted from mixing of Grande Ronde and upper Littlefield Rhyolite magmas, thereby tying a Grande Ronde magma storage site to within the greater Malheur River Gorge area, and indicating contemporaneity of rhyolitic and Grande Ronde magma reservoirs.

The southeast part of the Portland Basin has been previously described by other investigators. However, little detailed information existed on the depositional relationships between the units, the various sedimentary fades, or the origin of many of the units.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationship between educational attitudes and certain background features of Native Americans, in particular, where they were raised and what type of school they attended. The sample used consisted of 120 completed mail out-mail back surveys that were used primarily as a Needs Assessment for the Portland Indian Health clinic. The sample was randomly selected from the Portland Indian Health Clinic client/patient mailing list. The findings of this thesis indicate that the attitudes of Native Americans toward education in general are positive. The findings also indicate that older Native Americans who experienced being sent to a B.I.A. boarding school off the reservation have the least positive attitudes towards Indian Education programs. Implications and recommendation for further research are discussed.