Geography Commons^™

Aboriginal Dreaming, Paul Faulstich

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

The earth is the very substance of Australian Aboriginal life. The importance of the sense of place in Aboriginal life cannot be overstressed. An intimate knowledge of the environment and geography was, and still is, imperative to survival within a hunting and gathering context.

Karstification Of The Pennyroyal Plain Behind The Retreating Chester Escarpment: Warren, Simpson & Logan Counties, Kentucky, Anthony Able

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Hydrogeologic investigations were conducted on the drainage systems of an area of the Pennyroyal sinkhole plain of south central Kentucky. The degree of karstification of five area streams was studied to develop an understanding of the evolution of drainage as the landscape changes from a sandstone caprock plateau to a limestone sinkhole plain. The Chester Upland, capped by the Big Clifty Sandstone, possesses predominantly surface drainage and the Pennyroyal Plain, formed on Mississippian limestones, possesses considerable subsurface drainage. As the Chester Upland Escarpment retreats and surface streams are onto the limestones, the streams evolve to become subsurface streams. The five …

Wind Streamline Ambiguity Removal Of Microwave Scatterometer Data, Hans W. Zaepfel

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

There is a class of satellite microwave scatterometers that return oceanographic information which includes wind vectors with directional ambiguity. The first part of the ambiguity removal process is to reduce the data to a directional ambiguity of 180°. This thesis shows that wind direction change contains the information required for streamline ambiguity removal and that syntactic pattern recognition techniques can be used to locate the areas of wind direction change. Spreading the information along the areas of wind direction change results in the removal of the streamline ambiguity. The algorithm is implemented and the results are presented showing that it …

A Model For Assessing The Visual Resources Of River Basins As An Aid To Making Landuse Planning Decisions, Thomas J. Nieman, Diane S. Meshako, David Walters, Molly M. Davis, Cindy C. Elliot

KWRRI Research Reports

The visual quality of a river basin and its associated properties can be identified, evaluated and integrated into the landscape planning process. The model developed provides a quantitative methodology for determining visual quality on the basis of available Geographic Information System factors. These factors are utilized to develop the preference attributes, COLOR, FORM, TEXTURE and LINE, which are associated with the assessment of visual quality. The preference attributes are then combined through a decision making process into a continuum of DISTINCTIVE, GOOD, AVERAGE and MINIMAL visual quality and is expressed digitally in map format. By providing visual quality information in …

Modeling The Highway Transportation Of Spent Fuel, Ivor Glen Harrison

Doctoral Dissertations

There will be a substantial increase in the number of spent fuel shipments on the nation's highway system in the next thirty years. Most of the spent fuel will be moving from reactors to a spent fuel repository. This study develops two models which evaluate the risk and cost of moving the spent fuel. The Minimum Total Transport Risk Model (MTTRM) seeks the efficient solution for this problem by finding the minimum risk path through the network and sending all the spent fuel shipments over this one path. The Equilibrium Transport Risk Model (ETRM) finds an equitable solution by distributing …

Man & The Environment Of The Llanos Orientales Of Colombia, William Watts

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The investigation of the problem in this paper dealt with performing an examination of the landscape of the humid tropical wet-dry savanna region of the Llanos of Colombia, in an attempt to record a cultural imprint of man in the twentieth century in that environment. Fieldwork involving two summer traverses of the Llanos yielded an inventory of fresh factual documentation about how man has adapted to and utiliizes this environment.

Implementing the ecosystem concept as expressed by Barrows and Hegen, both man and the physical environment were studied to gain as complete a picture of the Llanos as possible. Data …

The Authorship Of Places: Reflections On Fieldwork In South Africa, John Western

Syracuse Scholar (1979-1991)

A social geographer takes a reflective view from afar of troubled South Africa, where he did intensive fieldwork. Issues of personal, academic, and social responsibility, plus those of the philosophy of social science, arise.

Rufus Putnam's Ghost: An Essay On Maine's Public Lands, 1783-1820, Lloyd C. Irland

Maine Bicentennial

On the plans of towns sold in the District of Maine after 1783, the signature of Rufus Putnam, surveyor, frequently appears. Putnam spent weeks in the wild lands locating corners and mapping lots as a field man for the largest land sales operation in Maine's history. In thirty-seven years he and his associates surveyed and sold a land area twice the size of Connecticut. They struggled with practical problems that still confront later generations of foresters: boundary disputes, political pressures, unruly logging contractors, timber estimates, and map making. The work of Rufus Putnam, not only as an individual but as …

Trapping Agony Continues: The Hsus Fights To End The Anguish

Close Up Reports

Despite the fact that the steel-jaw leghold trap has been outlawed in dozens of civilized nations, each year in the United States, its vicious jaws maim and kill an estimated 15 million animals. For wild creatures that have no owners awaiting their return, their cries of anguish go unheard and unanswered.

Racial And Ethnic Influences On Real Estate Agent Practices, Risa Palm

Geosciences Faculty Publications

A 1982 survey of Anglo, Black, and Hispanic real estate agents in the Denver metropolitan area suggested that race and ethnicity influence the attitudes and business practices of real estate agents. Minority real estate agents tended to gain listings from minority sellers and in areas of minority concentrations. They also have closer business relationships with other agents of the same minority group. One possible indicator of their integration into the dominant community, however, is the finding that minority agents were more likely to select personal residences in non- minority neighborhoods.

Coming Home, Risa Palm

Geosciences Faculty Publications

This address argues that human geographers should be eclectic in method and open to a variety of data sources but should frame our research so as to integrate micro- and macro-level observations. To do this, we must focus on the mutual effects of agency and structure. We should under­ stand the interactions between people and environment as being neither random nor law-given but rather the combination of historical circumstance of both long and short duration, confining and yet not determining human behavior. This approach has the power to return geography to its intellectual home, an openness to the world in …

Lucille Vinyard Journal 1986, Lucille Vinyard

Lucille Vinyard Journal Collection

No abstract provided.

Children And The Environment: Work, Play And Learning In Rural Sudan, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

In agricultural economies, environmental learning and the use of environmental knowledge are central practices of social reproduction. The former is important because it encompasses the acquisition of important vocational skills and knowledge, and the latter because it is often integral to the work of providing or procuring basic needs goods and services. In these societies children learn about the environment--that is, about agriculture, animal husbandry and the use of local resources-- largely in the course of their work and play in a variety of settings. In rural areas of the Third World the transition to capitalist relations of production is …

A Tour Of Country Programs, Ron Nigh, Liliana Madrigal, Juan Carlos Navarro, Aldemaro Romero Jr., Ernesto Barriga, Teresa Ortiz, Carlos Ponce, John E. Earhart

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Ua66/8/3 Annual Report, Wku Geography & Geology

WKU Archives Records

Annual report created by and about WKU Geography & Geology for the school year 1985-1986.

Modeling Location For Cadastral Maps Using An Object-Oriented Computer Language, Daniel Kjerne

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The challenge to designers of multipurpose computer-aided land information systems is to capture enough of the "deep structure" of the problem domain to enable a system to answer user questions and requests in a satisfactory way. Criteria defining "satisfactory" in each case must include considerations of accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and cost. These considerations, when applied to the location in space of parcel boundaries and property corners, present unusual difficulties. This is in large measure due to the fact that important elements of the field measurement process, and the determination of location based on what are essentially logical {legal) abstractions, are …

The Effect Of Soils On Settlement Location In Colonial Tidewater, Virginia, Craig Lukezic

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Spatial And Economic Variations Of Ethnic Groups, Ontario, Jayati Ghosh

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study is concerned with six ethnic groups in the province of Ontario: the British, considered the “core group”, and the French, Italian, Indo-Chinese, Indo-Pakistani and Caribbean, the “peripheral groups.”

The principal interest of the research has been to study the ethnic mosaic in two ways, both in a core-periphery context. It was hypothesised that there has been persistence of socio-economic stratification between the British core and the peripheral groups. This thesis analyzes variation in the occupation-income between and within the ethnic immigrant groups.

The secondary objective is to examine these groups spatially, that is, in terms of a southern …

An Assessment Of Hybrid Poplar Biomass Plantations For Ontario, Peter Caleb Sturrup

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The search for an alternative to oil dominated political and economic thinking during the 1970’s and continues in this decade. In Ontario, one such alternative is methanol, which could possibly be supplied in large quantities from hybrid poplar biomass plantations. While the nature of these plantations has been debated at greath length, the exact quantity and location of land that could be available for plantations in Ontario has not been identified.

Using the Land Evaluation Model (LEM 2) developed at the University of Guelph an inventory of the land resources and the resulting land use patterns is determined. Throughout the …