Geography Commons^™

Human Interactions In Physical And Virtual Spaces: A Gis-Based Time-Geographic Exploratory Approach, Ling Yin

Doctoral Dissertations

Information and communication technologies (ICT) such as cell phone and the Internet have extended opportunities of human activities and interactions from physical spaces to virtual spaces. The relaxed spatio-temporal constraints on individual activities may affect human activity-travel patterns, social networks, and many other aspects of society. A challenge for research of human activities in the ICT age is to develop analytical environments that can help visualize and explore individual activities in virtual spaces and their mutual impacts with physical activities.

This dissertation focuses on extending the time-geographic framework and developing a spatio-temporal exploratory environment in a space-time geographic information system …

Spatial Variation In Organic Carbon And Stable Isotope Composition Of Lake Sediments At Laguna Zoncho, Costa Rica, Zachary P Taylor

Doctoral Dissertations

Lake sediments are valuable paleoenvironmental archives that provide information on past climate and land-use change. Most lake sediment studies rely on a single core, usually recovered from the center of a lake, and do not consider spatial variability in the lake basin. My dissertation presents a spatially-explicit record of prehistoric agriculture from Laguna Zoncho, Costa Rica and evaluates spatial variability in lake sediment proxies based on a network of five sediment cores. Results extend earlier proxy analyses of a single core collected near the center of the lake, which documented prehistoric agriculture and forest clearance from 3000 to about 500 …

Geographies Of Competitive Advantage: An Examination Of The Us Farm Machinery Industry, Dawn M. Drake

Doctoral Dissertations

Many explanations of competitive advantage view place as a secondary factor. Organizational studies models tend to be considered aspatially, yet most are inherently geographic. It is important to consider the impact that geography has on the success or failure of an individual firm or a sector. This dissertation examines how location impacts the US farm machinery industry through an empirical analysis of Porter’s Theory of Competitive Advantage. Contributing to this empirical test are other bodies of literature including models for headquarters and research and development siting, product life cycle theory, industry life cycle theory, and green technologies as a driver …

Handmade And Diy: The Cultural Economy In The Digital Age, Benjamin Joshua Shultz

Doctoral Dissertations

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In recent years there has been growing consensus among academics and policy makers that cultural industries are key drivers of contemporary economic growth. For geographers and economists, the roles of agglomeration and knowledge flows are important factors that sustain the cultural industries. However, existing research focuses overwhelmingly on elite cultural industries in global cities. In addition, there has been little effort to account for new technologies that …