Digital Commons Network^™

Lidar Remote Sensing And The Monitoring Of Brazilian Amazon Forest Structure: Tackling Issues And Finding New Possibilities, Pedro Valle De Carvalho E Oliveira

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Amazon is the largest tropical forest in the world and around 60% of it is in Brazil. The amount of carbon stored in the region uncertain, the impacts of land use and climate changes are unknown, and what drives the dynamic of the forest structure is still under a heated debate. Optical remote sensing has been used for a long time to assist the monitoring of the Brazilian Amazon. However, optical remote sensing only allows a comprehensive study from the top of the forest canopy. In contrast, lidar remote sensing of forests can produce robust information regarding the canopy …

Local Visions For Patagonia: Drivers And Dynamics Of Collaborative Environmental Governance In Aysén, Chile, Zachary J. Hummel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Collaborative governance (CG) has emerged as a tool for addressing increasingly complex societal problems by engaging a diverse of set of cross-sector actors in a deliberative process with the aim of realizing consensus-driven outcomes. Emerson et al.’s (2011) Integrated Framework for Collaborative Governance (IFCG) attempts to improve understanding of these arrangements by articulating causal connections between collaborative drivers and dynamics across different contexts. Answering researchers’ call for more empirical support for the IFCG in non-US/European contexts, I used the framework to guide 10 interviews with collaborative governance practitioners in the comanaged marine protected area, AMCP-MU Pitipalena Añihue, located in Aysén, …

A Tale Of Two Working Landscapes, Sage C. Sutcliffe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Integrating Arcgis And Redux Using Middleware, Vishnu Vardhan Reddy Rapuru

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The integration of ArcGIS with Redux through middleware presents a novel approach to managing state in geospatial applications. This report outlines the process and benefits of combining ArcGIS’s robust mapping and analytics capabilities with Redux’s predictable state container for JavaScript apps. It begins with an introduction to both technologies, followed by a detailed discussion on the architecture design, focusing on the role of middleware as the linchpin in this integration[1]. The paper highlights the benefits, such as improved state management and application performance, and addresses the challenges encountered during the integration process. Implementation details are provided, including the setup of …

Optimizing Php Api Calls With Pagination And Caching, Parsharam Reddy Sudda

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Keweenaw Time Traveler (KeTT) project is devoted to mapping the historical and social landscapes of the Keweenaw Peninsula. During the project, it was discovered that the server-side performance needed improvement. To address this issue, the "Optimizing PHP API Calls with Pagination and Caching" initiative was launched. This initiative focused on refining API calls, implementing server caching and pagination, and fortifying security against common vulnerabilities. The project successfully mitigated risks associated with SQL Injection and XSS through meticulous code enhancements while improving error handling. Additionally, the introduction of Scroll-Induced Pagination optimized data delivery, significantly reducing response times, and elevating the …

การพัฒนาแบบจำลองสารสนเทศอาคาร (Bim) ด้วยเครื่องสแกนเลเซอร์สามมิติเพื่อการอนุรักษ์โบราณสถานของศาลเจ้าโรงเกือก : กรณีศึกษาการประเมินผลกระทบจากอุทกภัย, ปริฉัตร กานต์จารุรัตน์

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยนี้ศึกษาการพัฒนาแบบจำลองสารสนเทศอาคารด้วยเครื่องสแกนเลเซอร์สามมิติเพื่อการอนุรักษ์โบราณสถานของศาลเจ้าโรงเกือก กรณีศึกษาการประเมินผลกระทบจากอุทกภัย เนื่องจากปัจจุบันศาลเจ้าโรงเกือก แขวงตลาดน้อย เขตสัมพันธวงศ์ กรุงเทพมหานคร กำลังประสบปัญหาการทรุดโทรมและมีปัญหาน้ำท่วมขังอยู่บ่อยครั้ง ผู้วิจัยจึงจัดทำแบบจำลองอาคารสารสนเทศ โดยการเก็บข้อมูลจากเครื่องสแกนเลเซอร์สามมิติข้อมูลที่ได้จะอยู่ในรูปแบบจุดพิกัดสามมิติ ผลลัพธ์ที่ได้ข้อมูลมีค่าความถูกต้องเท่ากับ 2.9 มิลลิเมตร ซึ่งอยู่ในระดับความถูกต้องที่เชื่อถือได้ตามเกณฑ์งานสำรวจชั้น 3 ตามมาตรฐานของ FGCC1989 จากนั้นผู้วิจัยจึงนำข้อมูลมาพัฒนาเป็นแบบจำลองสารสนเทศอาคารโดยมีมาตรฐานรายละเอียดของแบบจำลองที่ระดับ 200 ซึ่งสามารถแสดงโครงสร้างทั่วไปของอาคาร เพื่อนำมาวิเคราะห์ร่วมกับข้อมูลแบบจำลองความสูงเชิงเลขและข้อมูลน้ำท่วมขังจากสำนักระบายน้ำกรุงเทพมหานคร ซึ่งแบ่งเป็น 5 ระดับ คือ 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.8 และ 1 เมตร โดยอ้างอิงจากข้อมูลหมุดวงรอบที่มีค่าระดับความสูงต่ำสุดในพื้นที่ศึกษาเพื่อใช้ในการประมาณค่าความเสียหายที่เกิดขึ้น ผลการศึกษาพบว่าที่ระดับ 0.1 เมตร พื้นที่เสียหายมีขนาด 197.79 ตร.ม. ระดับ 0.3 เมตร พื้นที่เสียหายมีขนาด 477.43 ตร.ม และตั้งแต่ระดับน้ำท่วมขัง 0.5 เมตรขึ้นไปถึง 1 เมตร พื้นที่เสียหายเท่ากันรวมพื้นที่ประมาณ 987.33 ตร.ม. ค่าความเสียหายที่เกิดขึ้นที่ระดับ 0.1 เมตร เท่ากับ 44,502.75 บาท ที่ระดับ 0.3 และ 0.5 เมตร เพิ่มขึ้นจากระดับ 0.1 เมตร ประมาณร้อยละ 141.43 และร้อยละ 732.58 ตามลำดับ จากนั้นความเสียหายจะคงที่จนถึงที่ระดับน้ำท่วม 0.8 เมตร และเพิ่มขึ้นอีกประมาณร้อยละ 802.78 ที่ระดับ 1 เมตร เนื่องจากการประมาณราคาของงานระบบไฟฟ้าที่เพิ่มเข้ามา โดยข้อมูลประมาณค่าความเสียหายที่เกิดขึ้น สามารถนำไปวางแผนเพื่อปรับปรุง ก่อสร้างหรือซ่อมแซมให้กับเจ้าหน้าที่ผู้ดูแลหรืองานอื่นๆที่เกี่ยวข้องได้ รวมถึงการวางแผนการป้องกันเพื่อการอนุรักษ์โบราณสถานได้ดียิ่งขึ้น

Understanding The Dynamics Of Food And Economic Development In The Community Of Kakisa, Northwest Territories, Canada, Laura Rodriguez Reyes

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

For Indigenous Peoples, the land embodies a source of cultural and spiritual well-being that is linked to their way of life and identities through divine and traditional connections. Unfortunately, colonial powers, the global food system, socioeconomic inequalities and environmental degradation are impacting northern Indigenous lands and food systems, leading to food insecurity. Nevertheless, communities are still thriving in the face of adversity. In the Northwest Territories, on the lands of Ka’a’gee Tu First Nations (KTFN) in the community settlement of Kakisa, people are growing food through vegetable gardens and greenhouses to support their vision of a resilient food system.

Through …

Making The Pluriverse Visible: World-Making On The Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula, Lauren Judge

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation argues that visual artists who live and work on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula, in Ontario, Canada, are co-creating artworks with non-humans, which is evidence of more-than-human world-making. Such co-creative experiences are the result of, and catalysts for the kinds of enchantment our human worlds need to form meaningful and holistic connections with non-humans, effectively creating a more inclusive pluriverse. After reviewing interdisciplinary literature in posthuman studies, creative geography, arts-based practices, environmental humanities, Indigenous knowledges, and political ontology, I designed my research to include a combination of qualitative methodologies and methods, including autoethnography and research-creation, to investigate fourteen visual …

Understanding Health And Well-Being Outcomes Associated With Protected Coastal Ecosystems: A Fundy National Park Case Study., Mhairi K. Chandler

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the mental health and well-being of Canadians, prompting many to turn to nature for consolation and social interaction. However, there is a lack of evidence linking these outcomes specifically to coastal areas. To address this gap, we conducted a self-reported survey at Fundy National Park, New Brunswick, Canada, in summer 2022. Over 400 visitors participated, revealing nature enjoyment, physical health, and mental well-being as primary motivators for park visitation. Notably, mental well-being showed significant differences across gender, sexual identity, and ethnicity, with males, straight individuals, and others exhibiting distinct preferences compared to females, 2SLGBTQIA+ …

Road Extraction On Remote Sensing Imagery: Historical Mapping Of The Brazilian Amazon, Jonas Paiva Botelho Jr

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This work proposes an artificial intelligence model based on U-Net architecture to map road networks in the Brazilian Amazon. Over the years, the Amazon region has been heavily exploited, leading to increased deforestation rates, contributing to CO2 emissions, amplifying global warming, and causing a disturbance in local fauna and flora. The expansion into the forest by illegal miners, loggers, and land grabbers can be tracked down by the construction of roads, which we can refer to as the arteries of deforestation. Previous works on the matter proposed algorithms that use high-resolution imagery to map roads precisely. However, this work approach …

Land Analysis Of A 33 Acre Parcel In Deerfield, Nh, Chloe C. Gross

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Agricultural Groundcover Update December 2023, Justin Laycock

Natural resources published reports

Summary

• About 96% of the grainbelt had adequate vegetative groundcover (more than 50%) to prevent wind erosion in December 2023.
• In the northern half of the grainbelt, a larger-than-average area has 51–60% groundcover, which is expected to decrease to below 50% over the summer.
• Just under 4% of the grainbelt (553,000 ha) had less than 50% groundcover, which is inadequate to prevent wind erosion. West Midlands Ag Soil Zone had the highest risk of wind erosion and 11.4% of this farmland had inadequate groundcover.
• Less than 0.5% of the grainbelt had a high to very high risk of wind erosion …

Scales Of Connectivity Within Stream Temperature Networks Of The Clackamas River Basin, Oregon, Michael Krochta, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water quality varies along the stream network; thus, considering the directional, dendritic nature of stream networks with surrounding landscape variables is essential in explaining spatial variations of water quality. Using a spatially extensive stream temperature monitoring effort in the Clackamas River Basin in the United States, we first compare spatial scales of analysis of atmospheric, landscape, and in-stream explanatory variables through their correlation with summer stream temperatures. We then derive a predictive stream temperature model with factors representing the spatial variation of local climate, recent wildfire effects, and discharge. Finally, we compare nonspatial multiple linear regression to a spatial stream …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Suledo Community-Based Forest Reserve: A Contested Terrain Between Peasants And Pastoralists In Kiteto District, 1990–2016, Juma Marmo

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper examines how the establishment of the SULEDO community forest reserve caused land use conflicts between peasants and pastoralists in Kiteto District from 1990 to 2016. The peasants complained that the government had deliberately made it possible for pastoralists to get more benefits from the reserve since they were allowed to graze their livestock in the reserve, which took large parts of their former agricultural land. Conversely, the grabbing of land by peasants in the forest reserve caused complaints from the pastoralists who claimed that the peasants were grabbing their grazing land in the reserve. Using archival sources, fieldwork …

Buddhist Music As A Contested Site: The Transmission Of Teochew Buddhist Music Between China And Singapore, Jie Zhang

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In the Chaozhou City Gazetteer of Buddhism & Chaozhou Kaiyuan Monastery Gazetteer published in 1992, the then Abbot of the Kaiyuan Monastery, Shi Huiyuan 释慧原 heavily condemned the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) monk Shi Kesheng 释可声 (date unknown) for "starting the sins among laities in the Chaozhou region who dared transgressing (the Buddhist doctrines) and became chant leaders in a flaming mouth ceremony.” Why was the Abbot so upset with a fellow monk back in history? What did Kesheng do, and what were the implications of him starting this "transgression"? This article investigates the history of the international traffic of Buddhist …

Opportunities And Challenges In Monitoring Cultivated Land Red Line In Big Data Era, Jinwei Dong, Yifeng Cui, Yuanyuan Di, Xuan Gao, Xi Chen, Linsheng Yang, Yumei Cai, Jia Ning, Jiyuan Liu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The demographic reality of a large population and limited land resources in China necessitates the implementation of the world’s most stringent cultivated land protection system. Effective, timely, and accurate monitoring of the status of cultivated land protection red line is essential to ensuring cultivated land protection and food security. The development of cutting-edge technologies such as remote sensing big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence has provided new opportunities for cultivated land control and monitoring. This article systematically elaborates on the current research status and challenges in the field of cultivated land protection redline control and monitoring, including the establishment …

Reviewers And Referees

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Statement From The Indiana Academy Of The Social Sciences And Board Of Directors

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Editors' Note, Nirupama Devaraj, Bharath Ganesh Babu

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Mission And Editorial Policy

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Submission Guidelines

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Volume 26, Full Contents

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Living Among Wildlife: Elevating Human-Wildlife Interactions And Coexistence, Bridget Rebecca Murphy

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

After a semester of learning, both in class and in nature, my writing honed in further on this human-nature divide. To me, I see humans as part of nature – as we are mammals, animals, part of the food chain, biological beings no higher than others on our planet. We have simply constructed this false narrative around us within our societies, minds and media that embeds this division between us and nature, between us and wildlife. Humans have been managing, stewarding, living off and within landscapes for thousands of years. As time and technology evolved, a lot of people began …

Enrichment-Planting With Pines Alters Fuel Amount And Structure In Endangered Araucaria Araucana Forests In Northwestern Patagonia, Argentina, Sofia Cingolani, Ignacio A. Mundo, Ivan Barbera, Andrés Holz, Thomas T. Veblen, Juan Paritsis

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The introduction of non-native tree species for large-scale afforestation may alter the fire regime of native ecosystems by modifying fuel proprieties. We quantified changes in fuel abundance and structure resulting from the establishment of commercial Pinus spp. plantations in Araucaria araucana ecosystems in northwestern Patagonia, Argentina. Specifically, we assessed the amount, distribution, and condition (live/dead) of surface and standing fine fuel in A. araucana stands with mature pine plantations (i.e. > 20 cm dbh) and in stands dominated only by A. araucana (control). Our study shows that both types of stands are prone to wildfires, but pine plantations have fuel characteristics …

The Tourist Trail In Rome: From The Trevi Fountain To Campo De' Fiori, Jean Lavigne

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

In The Hot Seat: Acquiring Kernel Density Heat Map Design Guidance Through Delphi And Survey Methods, Lauren Eileen Mckinney-Wise

Dissertations and Theses

Kernel density heat maps have emerged as a new, popular thematic map type. Yet, unlike other thematic map types, little if any published guidance exists for effective heat map design. This is significant because maps are highly persuasive objects that are often utilized to communicate important information, but maps can also be misleading and misunderstood. Therefore, proper guidance for heat map creation is critical for cartographers to create maps that convey geographic information successfully.

To address this literature gap, I used a modified Delphi method and an online survey to investigate several questions, including understanding what cartographic experts think are …

Quantifying Current Soil Brine Contamination Within The Smackover Oil Field In Arkansas Using Multispectral Digital Imagery, Victoria Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A remote sensing study was performed to quantify current soil brine contamination across the historic Smackover Oil Field in south-central Arkansas, United States. The oil field was established in 1922 and was not subject to the future waste regulations created by the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission. Brine is a waste product of oil manufacturing which contains water with high salt levels. The storage and transport of brine in the oil field created landscape scarring across the study area.

Landsat 9 multispectral digital imagery was utilized to create supervised classification maps based on earthen pits and creek scarring across the …

We Built This Country For Free – Using A Phenomenological Approach For (Re) Imagining Mississippi Black Small-Scale Farmers, Destiny Denise Crockett

Theses and Dissertations

By the early 20th century, in 1920, Black farmers owned 14% of US farmland. Today, in the 21st century, Black farmers own less than 2% of US farmland. The demise of Black farmers and Black farmland in US Agriculture is a direct result of social, political, and racial weaponization against their foodways, culture, and livelihoods. The history concerning the plight of Black farmers goes beyond USDA's historical discrimination but enters a position where racism is embedded and perpetuated within the structure of US agriculture. In effect, Black small-scale farmers have reaped the downfall of this system, enduring racial biases and …