Perceptions Regarding Public Safety in Portland’s King Neighborhood

The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) is partnering with Portland State University (PSU) and neighborhood groups to develop new strategies for improving police-community relations and reducing crime. Our most recent initiative seeks to provide residents with greater voice in where PPB officers work in their neighborhood and what steps the City takes there to address public safety concerns. The King neighborhood in Northeast Portland was chosen as the starting point for this work following a recent gang related shooting at King School Park. Officers from North Precinct had already begun outreach to the community and they wanted additional input from the residents on how to best address public safety issues in the area. In October and November (2015) all known households in the King neighborhood were mailed a letter inviting the adult occupants to participate in an online survey. The survey covered three main topics: First, residents were asked to identify their top public safety concerns and locate these concerns on a map of the King neighborhood. Second, residents were asked whether they supported or opposed various actions the city might take in responding to these issues. A third set of questions were asked to establish baseline measurements for PPB’s ongoing efforts to reduce the fear of crime and improve police-community relationships. This report provides the findings from the King survey. The results will be used by PPB and other agencies to develop tailored community safety initiatives for the neighborhood

What Can We Learn About Teaching Excellence from Our Students? Lessons From Six Years of Teaching Award Data

Teaching excellence in higher education can be defined and studied in different ways, but research efforts to date have often focused on institutional or instructor perspectives. This article uses a data set of over 500 open-ended comments submitted by Political Science undergraduates as part of a teaching award process to identify themes that matter most to students. We find that being supportive, bringing humor, enthusiasm, and passion to the classroom, and engaging students with relevant, challenging, and exciting activities are what defines teaching excellence from a student’s perspective. Building on these themes and using quotes to illustrate key concepts, we offer specific and concrete guidance to instructors about how to introduce these elements into their teaching

What Can We Learn About Teaching Excellence from Our Students? Lessons from Six Years of Teaching Award Data

Teaching excellence in higher education can be defined and studied in different ways, but research efforts to date have often focused on institutional or instructor perspectives. This article uses a data set of over 500 open-ended comments submitted by Political Science undergraduates as part of a teaching award process to identify themes that matter most to students. We find that being supportive, bringing humor, enthusiasm, and passion to the classroom, and engaging students with relevant, challenging, and exciting activities are what defines teaching excellence from a student’s perspective. Building on these themes and using quotes to illustrate key concepts, we offer specific and concrete guidance to instructors about how to introduce these elements into their teaching

Un/Folding Form: A Unified Strategy for Making and Visualising in 3D

This thesis project “Un/Folding Form” is a design investigation that explores the transition between the virtual representation and physical fabrication of folded forms. Un/Folding Form refers to a unified strategy for making and visualising in 3D. Un/folding was a method used to explore the notions of form, space and structure and to develop an adaptable approach to mediate between the virtual and physical world. Designers who make and visualise in 3D need methods that allow for the prototyping of virtual designs in order to experience them physically. The development of a unified strategy that assists in closing the gaps between virtual representation and digital fabrication improves the designer’s understanding of the process of making, leading to more creative and resolved outcomes. This research suggests that there are methods that can transition seamlessly between the virtual representation and physical reality of folded forms. The final composition presented in this thesis is a demonstration of this notion of working towards a seamless digital process of making. The 3D Portal can be used to assess the ‘seams’ between the virtual and the physical and validate a methodology for making and visualising in 3D. In order to arrive at a unified strategy, the folding and unfolding of surface geometries was first explored through a series of physical experiments. These geometries were then 3D modelled and the surfaces manipulated digitally in order to create patterns for digital fabrication and physical reconstruction. The virtual representation of these folded designs was then investigated within a 3D stereoscopic projected environment. This involved the use of software to explore design interfaces to create immersive visual representations of physical forms. These series of experiments involved a process of moving back and forth between the virtual environment and physical form with the aim of moving closer towards a seamless transition between the two. This methodology was tested with the making of a final composition 3D Portal: a gateway to the virtual world and a play on the inter-relationship of 3D visualisation and its corresponding physical form. Thus, the focus of this thesis is twofold: to create an understanding of the process and evolution of design using folding as a technique; and to develop a methodology for designing a work using the folding technique

Public Perceptions Regarding the Use of Force by Police in Portland, Oregon

The current study sought to assess public perceptions regarding the frequency of force used by Portland police and determine whether these beliefs are consistent with officially recorded data on force used by officers in recent years

Public Perceptions of Crime Maps: Considering the Impact of Map Style on Perceptions of Safety

Presentation slides for a study that questions how people may interpret and understand the types of crime maps that are frequently publicly available. As public crime maps increase in use and distribution, researchers are beginning to explore the impacts of access

Reporting Gunshots: Prevalence, Correlates, and Obstacles to Calling the Police

Accurately documenting where and when firearms are discharged is a critical first step in gun violence prevention. Many cities rely on police calls for service as their primary source for this information. Recent studies find, however, that citizens underreport gunshots. This has led some communities to invest in gunshot detection technology (GDT) as an alternative data source. GDT remains an expensive and often controversial solution with limited evidence for long-term benefits. This underscores the need for additional research on third-party reporting of gunshots. The current study, conducted in Portland Oregon, surveyed 1,240 residents in 23 neighborhoods with above-average firearm discharges. Analyses confirm that gunshots are vastly underreported. Multivariate logistic regressions found that respondents with higher trust in the police and those worried about gun violence were more likely to call 911 when they heard gunfire. Obstacles to reporting include ambiguity regarding the nature of the sound, diffusion of responsibility, and the perceived hassle of dealing with the local emergency dispatch system. Implications for surveilling gun violence are discussed

Online Crime Reporting: A new threat to police legitimacy?

Police are more likely to be perceived as legitimate when officers are procedurally just during interactions with the public (i.e. impartial, transparent, fair and respectful). Efforts to reinforce these skills have largely focused on contacts initiated by officers. Less attention has been paid to interactions with crime victims. Moreover, in recent years many police departments have sought to increase efficiency by directing victims to report online, rather than communicating directly with an officer. Very little is known about how victims experience online reporting systems. This study surveyed 1,198 property crime victims who used a large US police department’s online reporting portal. The primary objective was to evaluate the online reporting system using a procedural justice lens. One out of eight respondents said the agency’s online system was difficult to use, and just 16.7% were satisfied with the agency’s handling of their online report. Bivariate and multivariate analyses are used to identify factors associated with satisfaction, and qualitative data are used to document the specific problems victims encountered while using the online portal. Recommendations for improving online reporting are provided, including a discussion of enhancing procedural justice in technology-mediated police communications

PRIDE: the proteomics identifications database.

The advent of high-throughput proteomics has enabled the identification of ever increasing numbers of proteins. Correspondingly, the number of publications centered on these protein identifications has increased dramatically. With the first results of the HUPO Plasma Proteome Project being analyzed and many other large-scale proteomics projects about to disseminate their data, this trend is not likely to flatten out any time soon. However, the publication mechanism of these identified proteins has lagged behind in technical terms. Often very long lists of identifications are either published directly with the article, resulting in both a voluminous and rather tedious read, or are included on the publisher's website as supplementary information. In either case, these lists are typically only provided as portable document format documents with a custom-made layout, making it practically impossible for computer programs to interpret them, let alone efficiently query them. Here we propose the proteomics identifications (PRIDE) database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride) as a means to finally turn publicly available data into publicly accessible data. PRIDE offers a web-based query interface, a user-friendly data upload facility, and a documented application programming interface for direct computational access. The complete PRIDE database, source code, data, and support tools are freely available for web access or download and local installation