Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Considering The Non-Programming Geographer's Perspective When Designing Extracurricular Introductory Computer Programming Workshops, Thomas R Etherington

Journal of Spatial Information Science

Computer programming is becoming an increasingly important scientific skill, but geographers are not necessarily receiving this training as part of their formal education. While there are efforts to promote and support extracurricular introductory computer programming workshops, there remain questions about how best to deliver these workshops. Therefore, as part of a recent introductory programming extracurricular workshop I organized for non-programing geographers, I tried to understand more about their perceptions of computer programming. I identify that one of the most important aspects for geographers to learn to computer program is to have training that is domain specific to ensure that the …

Gis To Address Questions In Forest Ecology And Management, Nicolas Picard

Purdue GIS Day

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are powerful tools to deal with spatialized issues. As such, they have become routine tools in forestry to delimit forest resources, support the design of forest inventories, map forest resources, and analyze, model and support decision making to sustainably manage forests. Two examples will be provided to show how forest management can benefit from progress in GIS technology. The first one deals with the optimization of forest roads to harvest trees in tropical rainforests. It required the development of heuristics to solve the multiple target access problem in a reasonable time. The second one deals with …

Is Corruption Influenced By Human Development Index And Transparency? A Global Spatial Assessment Using Gis, Seyedali Ghahari, Shabnam Ghotbi, Samuel Labi, Nader Naderpajouh

Purdue GIS Day

The intricacy of the construction practices sometimes causes the vague atmosphere between clients, partners, and providers, is one of the Achilles heels of infrastructure projects; this grounds the industry as the most inefficient, corrupted business in the world. Governments, in recent years, have made a significant positive effort on public transparency. E-government is an effective tool to execute the very subject. Not only e-government helps transparency, but also it provides openness, accountability, the participation of citizens, etc. By giving citizens access to the functionality of public organizations and institutions, and providing open media for public debates, nations can obtain higher …

Uas, Joseph P. Hupy

Purdue GIS Day

This roundtable focuses on UAS as a geospatial data collection tool. Researchers with extensive background in GIS and remote sensing software, or interest in incorporating their UAS data more into GIS discuss about possible research opportunities and collaboration as well as how to incorporate UAS and GIS into curriculum.

An Investigation Of Habitat Suitability Factors And Their Interactions For Predicting Gopher Tortoise Habitat, Abigail V. Lavallin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis evaluates the interaction between four habitat factors vital to the gopher tortoise in Florida. Federally and state listed as threatened throughout its entire range, the gopher tortoise is vital to protect, not only for itself individually but its burrows provide an essential habitat to over 300 species making it a key stone species within its environment. Historic habitat modeling methods are reviewed for the gopher tortoise to highlight the gap on this topic. This research expanded on the methods utilized by Baskaran et al. (2006) evaluating the soil, landcover, percentage of canopy cover and the depth to water …

Collaborative Wcu Gis For Education, Research, And Outreach, Gary Coutu

Sustainability Research & Creative Activities Grants Reports

As WCU integrates sustainability into curriculum, public engagement, and campus-based research, GIS tools/data are critical for management, research, collaboration, and communication. A shared, WCU campus GIS has been published and the Center for GIS and Spatial Analysis continues to collaborate with the Office of Sustainability and faculty on the dissemination and use of our WCU GIS platform.

Native American Occupation Of The Singer-Hieronymus Site Complex: Developing Site History By Integrating Remote Sensing And Archaeological Excavation, Claiborne Sea

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Located on a ridgetop in central Kentucky, the Singer-Hieronymus Site Complex consists of at least four Native American villages. The Native Americans who lived there are called the “Fort Ancient” by archaeologists. This study examined relationships between these villages, both spatially and temporally, to build a more complete history of site occupation. To do this, aerial imagery analysis, geophysical survey, and archaeological investigations were conducted. This research determined there were differences among villages in terms of their size, however other characteristics—internal village organization, village shape, radiometric dates, and material culture—overlapped significantly. Additionally, landscape-scale geophysical survey identified at least three potentially …

A Climatology Of Convective And Non-Convective High-Wind Events Across The Eastern United States During 1973-2015, Victoria Murley

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

High-wind events (HWE) occur across every region of the United States (U.S.) and result in hundreds of fatalities, as well as thousands of dollars in damages annually. HWEs are classified as sustained high-winds or high-wind gusts and can be generated from convective or non-convective weather systems. This study investigates high-wind observations across the eastern U.S. during a 43-year climatological period (1973-2015) for spatial and temporal variations in wind speed and direction. Hourly surface wind observations were gathered from the National Centers for Environmental Information Data Center Integrated Surface Database (NCEI-ISD). This dataset includes qualitycontrolled wind observations from 391 first-order weather …

No More Hidden Secrets: Human Rights Violations And Remote Sensing, Tommy O'Connell, Stephen Young

Stephen Young

Aim: This study used both high resolution and medium resolution satellite imagery to test three semi-automated remote sensing methods, in an attempt to identify useful tools to support eye-witness testimony and reports on human rights violations. As huts are routinely burned down during attacks on a village, particularly in Sudan, the number of huts and villages burned can be used to corroborate on-the-ground reports.

Methods: Three remote sensing methods (Supervised Classification, Change Detection, and Feature Extraction) were performed on imagery from both before the attacks in February 2006 and after the attacks to examine any useful trends that could be …

Election Administration Within The Sphere Of Politics: How Bureaucracy Can Facilitate Democracy With Policy Decisions, Nicholas S. Martinez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public bureaucracy finds itself in a strange place at the intersection of political science and public administration. Political science finds that, within representative democracy, discretion granted to bureaucrats threatens the nature of democracy by subverting politicians who represent the will of the people – bureaucracy vs democracy. At the same time, public administration holds that, in the interest of promoting democracy, bureaucracy should be objective in its implementation of policy in a way that eliminates the influence of politics from decision-making – politics vs bureaucracy. Those positions are seemingly contradictory in nature. From one perspective, bureaucracy is undemocratic because it …

Data Storytelling With Policymap Across Disciplines, Katie M. Wissel, Lisa Deluca, Elizabeth Nash

Kathryn Wissel, MBA, MI

Assessment Of The Socio-Environmental Impacts Of The Urban Expansion Using Gis And Remote Sensing In The City Of Guayaquil, Ecuador., Erika P. Jimenez Rivera

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the impacts of the urban expansion from 1990 to 2010 in Guayaquil, Ecuador using geospatial technologies. It incorporates census and land cover data to identify the social and environmental repercussions through Hot Spot Analysis, land cover classification, and Markov chains model.

U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service Summer Fellowship: Gis Study Of Threatened And Endangered Species In Colorado, Jeanie Lai

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This report provides a detailed account of my fellowship experience with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Region 6 Office in Lakewood, CO during the summer of 2017 made possible by the Student Conservation Association (SCA) sponsored by Directorate Fellows Program. The internship was completed in the Region 6’s Branch of Decision Support in Ecological Services under the direction of Spatial Ecologist John Guinotte. I was a GIS Technician tasked with work responsibilities involving listed threatened and endangered species relevant to the region. Those work responsibilities included refining spatial Area of Influence (AOI) ranges, updating databases, and creating a …

Get To The “Point”: Improving Location Services In Tippah County Mississippi, Haley Feather

Master's Theses

Point location using geographic information systems (GIS) technology has become integrated into everyday society and daily decision-making by utilizing addresses to provide goods and services. A need exists at a national, state, and local level for an address database. The objectives of this study were to [1] determine the most suitable address data model to be used in Mississippi, [2] determine how positional accuracy changes between urban and rural areas, and [3] determine spatial variations in aerial imagery. Address data model comparisons were conducted using match rates between street, parcel, and point address models. Positional accuracy was determined for urban …

The Positive Developments And Applications Of Geospatial Technologies In Archaeology On Fort Benning, Georgia, Jane Mader

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the advantages of using geospatial technologies in the field of archaeology. The purpose of this study, conducted on Site 9CE16 on Fort Benning, Georgia, was to examine the ways in which Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to more accurately depict artifacts and features present on archaeological sites. With the research I gathered, I constructed an updated site map which can be viewed in Figures 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. The map produced includes more features than were initially mapped at Site 9CE16 and help paint a clearer picture of the structures which existed at the original …

Applying Spatial Literacy To Transform Library Space: A Selected Literature Review, Juliet M. Gray, Melissa Burel, Marlee Graser, Karen Gallacci

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review a selection of articles and books that highlight aspects of spatial theory and literacy from various disciplinary perspectives, along with a review of library space studies.

Design/methodology/approach

This study reviews library literature that uses spatial literacy and its related tools. The authors searched in two databases: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, and SCOPUS. The paper records were analyzed to find primary research studies, published between 2010 and 2017, which study patron use of library space using various single and hybrid methodologies.

Findings

The findings of the literature reveal that of …

Investigating The Influence Of Esri Story Map Design On Partcipation In Sustainability-Related Activities, Brittany Grace Austin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Decades of scientific inquiry have conveyed evidence in support of sustainability efforts to mitigate some of the greatest challenges and dilemmas facing modern and future societies. The solutions to these dilemmas may not be achievable in the short-term, yet, through increased public participation in sustainable community development, smallscale, localized solutions can be obtained. This preliminary research explored the influence of Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) story map designs on participation in sustainability-related activities among individuals who expressed interest in sustainable lifestyles. Specifically, this exploratory study was designed to demonstrate the applicability of interactive web geographic information systems (GIS) applications as …

Reconstructing Historical Hurricane Tracks In The Atlantic Basin: Three Case Studies From The 1840s, Emily L. Cerrito

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing past tropical cyclone activity enables researchers to recognize patterns of hurricane variability, estimate hurricane return periods, and assess local risk to future storms. This paleotempestology study used original primary data to make the historical record as comprehensive and accurate as possible for three major hurricanes: October 1844, October 1846, and September 1848. This thesis presents the reconstructed storm tracks, assesses the societal impacts, and evaluates the storm intensity of these three major hurricanes for the eastern U.S. and Cuba. The data utilized in this study include ship logbooks, newspapers, diaries, and instrumental meteorological records. A geographic information system (GIS) …

Wdph 2017 Summer Internship Report, Lauren Meininger

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

In the spring of 2014, the Worcester Division of Public Health, UMass Memorial Health Care, and Clark University’s Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise joined forces to begin developing a partnership that would combine academic resources, student input, and public health needs in the City of Worcester. Founders of this program were motivated to seek and implement innovative interventions for public health issues while simultaneously inspiring a new generation of public health professionals.

Each year, the Academic Health Collaborative of Worcester (AHCW) brings in student interns to work on the pressing public health issues of the moment. Interns work alongside epidemiologists, …

Transitory Ownership: A Spatial Analysis Of The Financialization Of The Housing Market In Cincinnati, Oh, Chad Kinsella, Colleen Mctague, Rafael Ranieri

The Journal of Economics and Politics

The mortgage bubble that burst in 2007 created an economic environment where many housing properties were transferred from individual households to investors hoping for quick profits with minimal investment. These properties were traded among investors, businesses, and lenders; they acquired a market identity as financial assets; and many of these properties were acquired by “out-of-area” interests. This study examines properties purchased by out-of-area interests that were sold in 2009 within the City of Cincinnati in an attempt to identify the spatial implications of the financialization of this housing stock. The analysis finds that many of these properties were sold multiple …

Land Suitability Assessment For Cash Crops Using Geospatial Techniques, Albert B. Jubilo, Glenn D. Depra, Aurecel L. Alejandro

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

Land suitability assessment studies for cash crop production in certain areas provide opportunities and limitations to decision makers and farmers. The objective of this study was to assess the suitability of land for banana, corn and cacao cultivation and production in Davao Region, Philippines. The methodology adopted combines most aspects of climate, temperature, slope and soil type that affect crop suitability at large. Suitability maps of the region for cash crop cultivation were established by scanning and digitizing the soil maps using geospatial techniques. Bananas are best suited for Davao del Norte. Corn are good for Davao del Norte and …

Case Study: Mapping Mangroves And Coastal Wetlands, Christopher Dubia, Kent Lewis, Andy Long

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

Mapping the Mangroves (MTM), a project of MapWorks Learning, provides formal and informal education, and gives citizen scientists and the larger scientific community the ability to engage with and explore mangroves and their ecosystems. Mangroves are a cornerstone species and play important roles in habitat formation, stabilization of coastal environments, and carbon sequestration. The MTM open curricula and GIS tool provide opportunities for anyone to learn about authentic applications of GIS in the field, explore mangroves and their ecosystems, and share their findings. Learners develop an understanding and appreciation for the role mangroves play in a healthy environment and how …

Spatial Data Infrastructure Of The Plurinational State Of Bolivia - A Free And Democratic Sdi, Raul Fernando Molina Rodriguez, Sylvain Lesage

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

The Vice Presidency of the State, with the help of the GeoBolivia project, is building the Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (IDEEPB by its Spanish initials). The first phase of the project has already been completed. It consisted in implementing an infrastructure and a geoportal that nowadays gives access to the reference geographic information of Bolivia, through WMS, WFS, WCS and CSW services. The project is currently in its second phase dedicated to decentralizing the structure of IDE-EPB and promoting its use throughout the Bolivian State. The whole platform uses free software and open standards. As …

Using Virtual Reality And Photogrammetry To Enrich 3d Object Identity, Cole Juckette, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Hector Eluid Guerra Aldana, Norman Martinez

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The creation of digital 3D models for cultural heritage is commonplace. With the advent of efficient and cost effective technologies archaeologists are making a plethora of digital assets. This paper evaluates the identity of 3D digital assets and explores how to enhance or expand that identity by integrating photogrammetric models into VR. We propose that when a digital object acquires spatial context from its virtual surroundings, it gains an identity in relation to that virtual space, the same way that embedding the object with metadata gives it a specific identity through its relationship to other information. We explore this concept …

A Comparative Assessment Of Food Deserts Using Geographic Information Systems (Gis) In El Paso County, Tx And Loudoun County, Va, Amit Ugamraj Raysoni

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

BACKGROUND & SIGNIFICANCE: Consumption of processed foods high in sodium and fat can have a plethora of health complications, including, but not limited to hypertension, high cholesterol levels, obesity, diabetes and cancer. Previous studies have documented that lack of access to viable healthy eating options' grocery stores selling affordable fresh fruits and vegetables - in any neighborhood or area can result in negative public health outcomes. These areas devoid of such grocery stores and healthy eating options can be classified as "Food Deserts", as per one of the criteria adopted by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In addition, …

Assessing Historical Planform Channel Change In An Altered Watershed With Quantification Of Error And Uncertainty Present In A Gis/Aerial Photography-Based Analysis; Case Study: Minnesota River, Minnesota, Usa., Devon Libby

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Little is known about the historic planform channel change of the Minnesota River of south-central Minnesota, USA. This is despite research that demonstrates anthropogenic activities have altered the Minnesota River Basin's hydrology, land use, and climate. In addition, the threat of invasive carp infestation requires an understanding of Minnesota River planform change to assess mitigation strategies. This thesis focuses on the lower Minnesota River (LMR) by measuring planform channel change (lateral channel migration, width, and sinuosity) from 1937 to 2013. Analysis is conducted by utilizing remote/GIS analysis of historic aerial photographs. A secondary focus addresses and quantifies the inherent/introduced error/uncertainly …

Cemetery Management In A Gis Framework: A Case Study Of Woodland Hills Memorial Park, Maureen Schmidt

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

his paper aims to examine the potential uses and applications of geospatial technologies for cemetery management. The Woodland Hills Memorial Park in Mankato, Minnesota, was used as a case study. The hard copy, handwritten records of the Woodland Hills Memorial Park were converted to digital formats, and then combined with GPS gathered data using GIS. The traditional method of storing and keeping these records is time consuming, as the curator must hand write all the information into the physical books. The maps of the park are also hand-drawn, which makes their examination and upkeep tedious. By creating digital copies of …

Final Internship Report: Gis Research And Analysis At The Center For Homicide Research, Paul Jeffrey Tatting

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This final internship report is being submitted as an Alternate Plan Paper as partial fulfillment for the Degree of Master of Science in Geography at Minnesota State University, Mankato. The internship took place at the Center for Homicide Research (CHR) in Minneapolis, Minnesota from January through June of 2018.

This paper is organized into seven chapters. This chapter, Chapter 1, is the introduction to the internship. Chapter 2 examines the scope of the internship. It includes a background of CHR, the duties of a GIS Intern, and discusses the benefits of the internship. Chapter 3 details presentations that were made …

Modeling Pre-Settlement Wetlands In Northern Minnesota, Johnathon T. Salfer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Modern land use has dramatically altered the native landscape across much of Minnesota and the United States. “Manifest Destiny” has ingrained the idea in American society that wetlands and related lands of “low value” need to be tamed and made profitable. In many places, wetlands have been drained and removed so that agriculture can take over. In recent years, people have begun to see the unintended consequences of this method, and importance is now being given to natural wetlands through various government projects and programs. Using National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) data, Drainage Index (DI) values calculated from Soil Survey Geographic …

A Cartographic Workflow Manual For Endangered Species Conservation, Martin P. Viereckl

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In response to global consumer demand for rare and exotic wildlife products, poaching of endangered species has become pervasive around the world (Eliason 1999). Despite the enactment of CITES, and other international efforts to protect vulnerable species from overexploitation, the global market for illegal wildlife products is estimated as high as $20-billion a year industry (Wyler 2008). Within important wildlife habitat sites, law enforcement struggle to curb rampant poaching that threatens the ultimate survival of many endangered species (Jachmann 2008; Rowcliffe 2004). Law-enforcement agencies responsible for protecting wildlife from poachers often lack geospatial tools that could greatly improve the effectiveness …