Digital Commons Network^™

Forest Landscape Change Detection In The Meseta PuréPecha, MichoacáN, MéXico, John Malcolm Chase

Dissertations and Theses

Social, political, economic, and environmental factors converge in developing countries to stimulate high rates of deforestation. Forest conversion reduces biodiversity, contributes to carbon loading of the atmosphere, alters the global water balance, and degrades the quality of life for rural people. Mexico is the fifth most biologically diverse country in the world and temperate and tropical forests in Mexico are rapidly disappearing with environmental and cultural repercussions for people and ecosystems.

Social, political, economic, and environmental factors converge in developing countries to stimulate high rates of deforestation. Forest conversion reduces biodiversity, contributes to carbon loading of the atmosphere, alters the …

Geography Newsletter, Spring 2002, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Geography.

Geography Newsletter

Inside this issue:

-- New GIS/Remote Sensing Faculty Member Appointed for 2002-03
-- Alumni Album
-- Recent Geography Graduates
-- Geography Foundation Account
-- 2002 Geography Alumni Survey
-- Results of the 2000-01 Departmental Academic Program Review
-- Dr. David W. May Promoted to Full Professor
-- Spring Awards Banquet: Friday, April 26, 2002

Assessment Of Land Use/Land Cover Change Impact On Water Quality In The Davis Creek Watershed, Southwestern Michigan, Porntip Limlahapun

Masters Theses

This study uses Arc View Nonpoint Source Modeling (A VNPSM), an interface between Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Model and ArcView GIS to assess the impact of land use/land cover change between 1978 and 1996 on water quality in the Davis Creek watershed, southwestern Michigan. The distribution of land use/land cover changes is identified by geographic analysis. Compared to 1978, agricultural land decreased by more than 60 percent while residential land increased by over 170 percent in the watershed in 1996. The hydrologic impact of the urbanization is evaluated by the AGNPS model. AVNPSM is used to derive required input parameters …

Learning In The Prairie, Meredith L. Beilfuss

Masters Theses

This research focused on fieldwork in geography and science education relative to the high school curriculum. First, the literature was reviewed to analyze the pedagogical and cognitive benefits of using fieldwork and how fieldwork might enrich the high school social studies and science curriculum in Michigan. Second, prairie curriculum resources were evaluated for suitability using the Michigan Education Standards and the National Standards for Geography. Finally, two groups of high school students engaged in fieldwork, using two different methods, photography and sketching, and were compared for their pre and post fieldwork knowledge of prairie ecological concepts. The pre and post …

Roots And Shoots Of The H. Dan Heyn Vision: Indigenous Planting Design, 1950-1980, Elizabeth A. Heiny-Cogswell

Masters Theses

Indigenous planting design, the practice of incorporating regional native plant species into new landscape projects, is little studied. This trend is counter to the more known and accepted American practice of using exotic ornamental plant species. This thesis studies the work and context of one Texas landscape architect, H. Dan Heyn. Beginning in the 1950's and continuing through the 1980's, Heyn became committed to, and specialized in, the use of indigenous plants in his landscape architectural design practice.

This investigation shows the beginning and importance in Texas of the idea to use indigenous plants, the tremendous task involved to study …

Report Of Animal Bones From Tjarnargata 3c, Reykjavík, Iceland, Sophia Perdikaris, Colin Amundsen, Thomas H. Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Executive Summary

During rescue excavations in downtown Reykjavík in 1999 nearly 100 kg of well-preserved animal bone was recovered in investigations at Tjarnargata 3 C by Fornleifastofnun Islands (FSÍ) directed by Mjöll Snaesdóttir. This bone collection (or archaeofauna) was largely sieved (4 mm and 1 mm mesh wet screen) and represents one of the largest archaeofauna recovered from Iceland to date. Analysis was carried out at City University of New York’s Northern Science & Education Center’s two zooarchaeology laboratories at Brooklyn College and Hunter College in 2000-01. The analyzed bone materials were returned for long term curation at the National …

Feng Shui And Chinese Rituals Of Death Across The Oregon Landscape, Andrew Ryall Briggs

Geography Masters Research Papers

Paper 2: Upwards of 20,000 Chinese migrated to Oregon before 1890. Upon their deaths many were interred in "Chinese cemeteries." In China, the placement of cemeteries is an important aspect of the traditional Chinese religion. This paper asks if the early Chinese practiced the same Feng Shui in the placement of the Oregon gravesites. While Feng Shui is not codified, there are a few general principles to determine graveyard placement, and by comparing Oregon Chinese gravesites with that required for proper Feng Shui placement, concluded that the early Chinese immigrants may have followed the precepts of traditional Chinese religion in …

Analysis Of Gps Satellite Allocation For The United States Nuclear Detonation Detection System (Usnds), Aaron J. Bell

Theses and Dissertations

We present an approach for identifying salient input features in high feature to exemplar ratio conditions. Basically we modify the SNR saliency-screening algorithm to improve the solution of the optimal salient feature subset problem. We propose that applying the SNR method to randomly selected subsets (SRSS) has a superior potential to identify the salient features than the traditional SNR algorithm has. Two experimental studies are provided to demonstrate the consistency of the SRSS. In the first experiment we used a noise-corrupted version of the Fisher s Iris classification problem. The first experiment designed to prove the fidelity of the SRSS …

Commercial Regional Space/Airborne Imaging, Ugur Akyazi, Ali Durmus, Birce Boga Bakirli, Arif Arin

Theses and Dissertations

In this work goal programming is used to solve a minimum cost multicommodity network flow problem with multiple goals. A single telecommunication network with multiple commodities (e.g., voice, video, data, etc.) flowing over it is analyzed. This network consists of: linear objective function, linear cost arcs, fixed capacities, specific origin-destination pairs for each commodity. A multicommodity network flow problem with goals can be successfully modeled using linear goal programming techniques. When properly modeled, network flow techniques may be employed to exploit the pure network structure of a multicommodity network flow problem with goals. Lagrangian relaxation captures the essence of the …

On The Edge Of Scarcity: Environment, Resources, Population, Sustainability, And Conflict, Michael N. Dobkowski, Isidor Wallimann

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration

These essays address one of the most pressing and significant issues that humanity has confronted to date - the lack of life-sustaining resources. Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann establish a disturbing but realistic scenario of the disastrous future that awaits humankind as surplus populations collide with dwindling resources. Authors consider a number of cause-and-effect situations on industrialization, biophysical limits, exponential population growth, and genocide, to name a few. This volume is a critical contribution to the field and will serve as an ideal introduction to courses in the environment, population, resources, genocide, and social conflict.

A Role For Natural Resource Social Science In Biodiversity Risk Assessment, Philip J. Nyhus, Frances R. Westley, Robert C. Lacey, Philip S. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Biologists have made considerable progress in developing realistic simulation models to predict extinction risks for threatened species. Social scientists have to date had a more limited role in these efforts. This limited involvement comes despite the growing acknowledgment by population biologists and simulation modelers that this additional input is necessary for these models to accurately reflect the impact of humans and human-dominated landscapes on wildlife populations. We argue that collaborations among social and biological scientists can provide unparalleled opportunities to develop new conceptual and simulation tools for biodiversity risk assessment. One challenge is that while the value of interdisciplinary research …

A Late Quaternary Paleoecological Record From Caves Of Southern Jamaica, West Indies, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Joyce Lundberg, A.G. Fincham

WM Keck Science Faculty Papers

Studies of an unusual and diverse system of caves in coastal southern Jamaica have yielded a paleoclimatic record associated with a fossil vertebrate record that provides useful insights into the poorly documented paleoecology of latest Wisconsinan and Holocene Jamaica. Episodes of significantly increased precipitation during the Holocene have left characteristic deposits of speleothems, and have supported both faunal and archaeological communities that were dependent on these mesic conditions. Deposits of fossil bat guano preserved in the caves provide a δ¹³C record of alternating mesic and xeric climatic episodes that supports the interpretation of the faunal and archaeological record.

Fossils On The Prairie.Pdf, Chris Laingen

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Between 1935 and 1992, the number of farms in the United States decreased from approximately seven million to fewer than two million. This change left a noticeable imprint on the landscape. Working farmsteads have been reduced to idle, desolate buildings, or in some cases there are no buildings left at all. To study this transformation, black and white air photographs from 1950 were compared with 1990 air photographs. Also, plat books and ground checks in four townships in Watonwan County in southwestern Minnesota helped document changes. Farmsteads were abandoned or demolished because people began to find they could not economically …

Canis Lupus Cosmopolis: Wolves In A Cosmopolitan Worldview, William S. Lynn

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

The subject of wolf recovery in North America sparks heated controversy, both for and against. This paper explores how this subject is informed by cosmopolitan worldviews. These worldviews pull nature and culture into a common orbit of ethical meaning, with implications for the normative relationships that ought to pertain in landscapes shared by people and wolves. This theoretical outlook is illustrated using the controversy over wolves in the northeastern region of the United States. I conclude with a set of reflections on theorizing the cosmopolis, the interpretation of cosmopolitan landscapes, and living with cosmopolitan wolves.

Resolving Conflicts Between People And Canada Geese: The Need For Comprehensive Management Approaches, John Hadidian

Wildlife Population Management Collection

Canada geese have become established and are now numerous enough in many urban and suburban areas that conflicts with humans have become frequent. Although potential threats to human health are often cited as a justification to manage goose populations, currently available science suggests that this is not a serious issue. This leaves the primary concern as one of aesthetics– people do not like having to deal with what can sometimes be copious amounts of goose droppings. Animal welfare interests have questioned the humaneness of different roundup and killing programs, and advocated non-lethal approaches and egg addling. Both approaches currently are …

The “Nuisance” Wildlife Control Industry: Animal Welfare Concerns, John Hadidian, Laura J. Simon, Michele R. Childs

Wildlife Population Management Collection

The recent and rapid growth of the private “nuisance” wildlife control industry follows the unparalleled current period of urban and suburban expansion. Nuisance wildlife control businesses range from simple home-based services to sophisticated franchised businesses. The nuisance wildlife control operator may hold an advanced degree in the wildlife sciences, or simply be an entrepreneur without formal education or even background experience in wildlife. State and federal agencies may participate directly or indirectly in nuisance wildlife control, in activities ranging from dissemination of advice or information to actual participation in programs that may lead to removal of animals. Naturally, all of …

Exodus And Exile: The Spaces Of Diaspora (Exhibit Guide), Osher Map Library And Smith Center For Cartographic Education

Osher Map Library Miscellaneous Publications

Exodus and Exile: The Spaces of Diaspora.

January 22, 2002 to January 5, 2003

Maps from the sixteenth century to the present can be used to explore different spatial aspects of diaspora ~ considered generally ~ through the experiences of Jews and African-Americans.

The Sustainability Of Sustainable Consumption, Paddy Dolan

Articles

This article examines the limitations of the concept of sustainable consumption in terms of the inadequate attention given to the social, cultural and historical contextualization of consumption. I argue that Macromarketing should adopt modes of inquiry that more fully engage with this contextualization. The implicit assumptions of ‘sustainable consumption’ center on the rational individual and his or her needs and wants, and neglect the significance of consumption practices as embodying the relations between individuals. Acts of consumption are not in opposition to, and prior to, macro structures and processes, they are macro processes at work. Consumer practices are cultural and …

Great Salt Lake Watershed, Robert J. Johnson, R. Douglas Ramsey

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

A map outlining the drainage basin of the Great Salt Lake, Utah with shaded topography as the base layer. This was produced by the Remote Sensing and GIS Laboratory, Department of Wildland Resources, Quinney College of Natural Resources.

Australia: An Integrated Curriculum Unit, Grades 2-4, Institute For The Development Of Gifted Education, Ricks Center For Gifted Children, University Of Denver

Ricks Curriculum Units Series

An integrated curriculum is an instructional approach that connects the disciplines to an underlying theme or topic. Immersing students in an integrated-thematic unit provides the backdrop for experiences to occur across the disciplines. Shaping coursework around integrated themes is especially appropriate for gifted students, however using an integrated-thematic curriculum is appropriate for all learners as it develops students' abilities to make connections, to solve problems by looking at multiple perspectives, and to integrate information from different fields of experience. An integrated-thematic curriculum permits students to be active participants in their own learning as they design their own explorations and take …

Wwii Pacific Theatre Maps, Jacqueline D. Goins

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Feeding A Growing Population On An Increasingly Fragile Environment, Andrew Sluyter, William E. Doolittle, Eric P. Perramond, Phil L. Crossley, Dean P. Lambert

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Nisqually Watershed From The Summit To The Sound: A Field Guide, Rebecca D. Hixson, Teresa L. Bulman

Occasional Papers in Geography

Occasional Papers in Geography Publication No. 6

This guide begins at the summit of Mount Rainier and, like a drop of water, descends toward the sea. It provides information about geological, hydrological, geographical, biological and historical aspects of the Nisqually watershed. It describes the natural resources in the area and identifies how the use of those resources affects water resources and quantity.

In the course of this trip, you will be able to follow the Nisqually River along its journey from the summit of Mount Rainier to the Puget Sound and learn about the changes that have occurred within this …

Ocean: An Integrated Curriculum Unit, Institute For The Development Of Gifted Education, Ricks Center For Gifted Children, University Of Denver

Ricks Curriculum Units Series

An integrated curriculum is an instructional approach that connects the disciplines to an underlying theme or topic. Immersing students in an integrated-thematic unit provides the backdrop for experiences to occur across the disciplines. Shaping coursework around integrated themes is especially appropriate for gifted students, however using an integrated-thematic curriculum is appropriate for all learners as it develops students' abilities to make connections, to solve problems by looking at multiple perspectives, and to integrate information from different fields of experience. An integrated-thematic curriculum permits students to be active participants in their own learning as they design their own explorations and take …

Randomness And Optimal Estimation In Data Sampling, Florentin Smarandache, Mohammad Khosnevisan, Housila P. Singh, S Saxena, Sarjinder Singh

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The purpose of this book is to postulate some theories and test them numerically. Estimation is often a difficult task and it has wide application in social sciences and financial market. In order to obtain the optimum efficiency for some classes of estimators, we have devoted this book into three specialized sections: Part 1. In this section we have studied a class of shrinkage estimators for shape parameter beta in failure censored samples from two-parameter Weibull distribution when some 'apriori' or guessed interval containing the parameter beta is available in addition to sample information and analyses their properties. Some estimators …

Remembering Dehlie: A Chrono-Topo-Graphy Of Imagination, Subhash Jaireth

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In a few weeks I shall be going to India to see my daughter. This will be our first meeting after she went back to India with her mother five years ago. She is fifteen now, and, in a way, a complete stranger to me. You don't know me, she tells me often on the phone, Neither do I know you. The little girl whom you carried on your shoulders and played hopscotch with, is nothing but a shadow. Come and see what has become of me. I have made up my mind to go but I know …

Rich Earth Below The Sand' And The Origins Of The Thames Embankments, Stuart Oliver

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

This essay explores the designing of the Thames embankments that were built between 1866 and 1874 for the Metropolitan Board of Works. In particular it concentrates on the origins of what might be called the production of the conditions of production of the embankments. By looking at the motivation of those advocating embanking as a means of exerting literal and figurative control over the river, and the ways in which society influenced such advocacy and determined its effectiveness, the essay explores modernity's construction of a regulated natural in the context of an analysis that is sensitive to the …

Cabbagetown: (Re) Placing Identity, Jeremy W. Crampton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Cabbagetown is one of Atlanta's oldest industrial settlements, built for employees of the South's first cotton processing mill in 1881 during the heyday of southeastern textile mills. Today its identity and sense of place is highly contested. Originally a white working class community oriented around the mill, today it is undergoing gentrification -- the mill has been converted into gated lofts, and there are few long-term residents still left. Remarkably, the neighborhood is still distinct and unusual. It's almost as if a sense of history has settled into the neighborhood's bones and imbued its new residents with a …

A Spatio-Temporal Data Model For Zoning, Philip J. Uhl

Theses and Dissertations

Planning departments are besieged with temporal/historical information. While for many institutions historical information can be relegated to archives, planning departments have a constant need to access and query their historical information, particularly their historical spatial information such as zoning. This can be a cumbersome process fraught with inaccuracies due to the changing organizational methods and the extended historical legacies of most municipalities. Geographic Information Systems can be a tool to provide a solution to the difficulties in querying spatio-temporal planning data. Using a data model designed specifically to facilitate the querying of historical zoning information, queries can be performed to …

Teoretické Interpretace Transformace Ve Středni A Východni Evropě (Theoretical Interpretations Of Central And East European Post-Communist Transformations), Petr Pavlinek

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

Post-communist transformations have been approached and interpreted differently by different academic disciplines and their respective subdisciplines. This paper provides a critical review of traditional and alternative views of changes in Central and Eastern Europe since the collapse of state socialism. In particular, it focuses on neo-liberal and neoclassical economic interpretations and neo-marxist state to private capitalism thesis as examples of traditional interpretations of post-communist transformations. Alternative views critically reviewed in this paper are based on evolutionary and institutional economics, the analysis of networks of economic embeddedness, the Marxist analysis of production processes, and regulation theory. The differences between these traditional …