Digital Commons Network^™

An Apex Predator In Peril In The Western Lowlands Of Ecuador: Mapping The Population Distribution Of Harpy Eagles (Harpia Harpyja) In A Highly Deforested Region, Samuel Zhang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) is a highly threatened bird of prey in Ecuador. While they are already elusive in the Ecuadorian Amazon, they are even lesser known in the coastal lowlands, and their existence is threatened by rapid deforestation. This study mapped their potential distribution by examining satellite images to find intact humid forest, their ideal habitat. Habitat areas were quantified using ImageJ. The only sites found to be adequate for sustaining Harpy Eagle populations were the primary forests in the vicinities of Reserva Ecológica Mache Chindul and Reserva Ecológica Cotacachi Cayapas. The two reserves are expected to be …

Fields Brook Superfund Site: Race, Class, And Environmental Justice In A Blasted Landscape, Richard C. Bargielski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1980, the United States Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). This federal law provided the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the legal tools necessary to pursue polluters who had improperly stored or disposed hazardous wastes. Since its passage, more than a thousand sites have been added to the National Priorities List (NPL), but only a fraction have been cleaned up. Proponents of neoliberalism argue that aggressive environmental policies such as CERCLA harm workers by making it impossible for businesses to operate profitably. This coincides with a drop of nearly 50% in the U.S. …

The Investigation Of Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes For The Carbon Dioxide Capture And Ethane Oxidative Dehyrogenation Catalysts, Zheng Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have gained interest for wide use as both support and catalyst due to the ease of uniquely tunable surface chemistry. Increasingly severe greenhouse effects have attracted attention to novel materials and technologies capable of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2). In this context, we develop a CNT based solid state amine for the CO2 capture. CNT are functionalized under various methods as a support for polymeric amines. Polyethyleneimine are physically adsorbed on CNT and are further characterized and studied for reversible CO2 capture. We obtain a high CO2 capture capacity (6.78 mmol∙g-1) for linear polyethyleneimine (LPEI) and 6.18 mmol∙g-1 …

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy For Elemental Analysis In Bioarchaeology And Forensic Anthropology, Kelsi N. Kuehn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Within bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, the current processes of differentiating between individual human skeletal remains are imprecise, costly, and inefficient. A novel analytical technique within anthropology, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) can aid in the identification of human remains using rapid laser ablation occurring at the micro-scale, making the technique virtually non-destructive to the sample. Considering this, LIBS could offer a superior method for materials discrimination and human identification. This research sought to examine whether LIBS can be used to obtain elemental signatures within bones to distinguish individuals from one another in a rapid, non-destructive manner. Seven human skeletal donors and …

Capturing The City’S Heritage On-The-Go: Design Requirements For Mobile Crowdsourced Cultural Heritage, Bas Hannewijk, Federica Lucia Vinella, Vassilis-Javed Khan, Ioanna Lykourentzou, Konstantinos Papangelis, Judith Masthoff

Articles

Intangible Cultural Heritage is at a continuous risk of extinction. Where historical artefacts engine the machinery of intercontinental mass-tourism, socio-technical changes are reshaping the anthropomorphic landscapes everywhere on the globe, at an unprecedented rate. There is an increasing urge to tap into the hidden semantics and the anecdotes surrounding people, memories and places. The vast cultural knowledge made of testimony, oral history and traditions constitutes a rich cultural ontology tying together human beings, times, and situations. Altogether, these complex, multidimensional features make the task of data-mapping of intangible cultural heritage a problem of sustainability and preservation. This paper addresses a …

Rockhounding, Seafaring, And Other Material Tales For The End Of The World, Noemie Fortin

The Goose

In the face of accelerated environmental degradation and climate instability, the future of the Earth and of all life on earth is difficult to visualize. Therefore, the different mediums through which we consider environmental issues are just as important as the actions we take to address them. Focusing on three projects combining art, science, and activism, this article suggests a compilation of material tales. They tell stories of plastic rocks and aluminum nuggets where the protagonists are partly finely crafted objects, partly waste materials, and sometimes both at once. Artists Kelly Jazvac, Yesenia Thibeault-Picazo, and the collective Studio Swine collaborate …

Adapting Livestock Production Systems To Climate Change In Nepal: Challenges And Opportunities, D. D. Poudel, R. P. Thakur, T. Duex, G. Blakewood, A. Singh, A. Deramus, B. Chapagain, K. Acharya, S. Adhikari, R. B. Gramling, N. Sharma

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

To assess climate change impacts and identify challenges and opportunities for livestock climate change adaption, we conducted a comprehensive study in the Thulokhola watershed of Nuwakot district in Nepal from June 1, 2011 to January 31, 2013. We established nine community livestock groups (CLGs) consisting of 51 members and trained the CLG members in daily livestock record keeping and monitoring surface water quality. Monthly fecal samples from 50 cattle, 50 goats, and 50 buffaloes were collected for the determination of gastrointestinal parasites. Soil and fodder samples were also collected and analyzed. Group discussions, Participatory Rural Appraisals, and full-fledged household survey …

Arranged Marriages: An Inappropriate Fabrication, Karika Sethi, Michael D. Reiter

Mako: NSU Undergraduate Student Journal

This paper explores what an inappropriate relationship is and the taxonomy scale used to evaluate different relationships, specifically, arranged marriages. Arranged marriage is a topic that is considered taboo depending on global location. It is more prevalent in Eastern nations such as India, China, Oriental countries, and the Middle East. However, Western influence plays a significant role on what is and is not acceptable, as societal norms differ from place to place. What is defined as normal by culture is what helps to define if a relationship is or is not viewed as inappropriate. This paper is designed to explore …

Climate Change Perceptions, Data, And Adaptation In The Garhwal Himalayas Of India, Rutherford V. Platt, Monica V. Ogra, Natalie A. Kisak, Upma Manral, Ruchi Badola

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Himalayan communities that depend on rain-fed agriculture are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change. In this study, we compare local perceptions of climate change from a household survey (n = 251) to climate data obtained from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS 2.1) and MODIS Terra Snow Cover data product datasets. The study is situated in and around the Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located within the Garhwal Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. We found that a large majority of respondents perceive that rainfall is increasing and that snowfall is decreasing, while a smaller majority perceives an …

Dental Microwear As A Behavioral Proxy For Distinguishing Between Canids At The Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian) Site Of Predmostí, Czech Republic, Kari A. Prassack, Josephine Dubois, Martina Laznickova-Galetova, Mietje Germonpre, Peter S. Ungar

United States National Park Service: Publications

Morphological and genetic evidence put dog domestication during the Paleolithic, sometime between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago, with identification of the earliest dogs debated. We predict that these earliest dogs (referred to herein as protodogs), while potentially difficult to distinguish morphologically from wolves, experienced behavioral shifts, including changes in diet. Specifically, protodogs may have consumed more bone and other less desirable scraps within human settlement areas. Here we apply Dental Microwear Texture Analysis (DMTA) to canids from the Gravettian site of P�redmostí (approx. 28,500 BP), which were previously assigned to the Paleolithic dog or Pleistocene wolf morphotypes. We test whether …

Geochronology Of The Middle Eocene Purple Bench Locality (Devil’S Graveyard Formation), Trans-Pecos Texas, Usa, Amy L. Atwater, Kelly D. Thomson, E. Christopher Kirk, Meaghan Emery-Wetherell, Logan Wetherell, Daniel F. Stockli

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Purple Bench is a middle Eocene fossil locality in the Devil’s Graveyard Formation of the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. In addition to yielding a range of taxa characteristic of the Uintan North American Land Mammal Age, the Purple Bench locality is noteworthy in documenting a number of endemic species that are known only from the site. Despite the Uintan character of the mammalian fauna, the absolute age of Purple Bench is a matter of debate. This uncertainty stems from the wide interval of time encompassed by current radiometric dates bracketing the Purple Bench locality and from conflicting magnetostratigraphic correlations …

Mathematical Cognition And The Arts, Marcel Danesi

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article revisits the study of mathematics in the arts, and vice versa, the arts in mathematics, with a view to connecting mathematical and artistic creativity to the same neural circuits—a proposition put forward for mathematics and language in a critical 2000 book by Lakoff and Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being. This expanded perspective would open up suggestive avenues for connecting mathematics, language, and the arts as part of an imaginative blend that comes out in different forms but having the same underlying neural source. Whether or not this can be …

Field Investigation On Point Bar Dynamics And Planform Evolution In Meandering Rivers, Taylor Rowley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Point bars are prominent features in meandering rivers, yet our understanding of the complex interactions among channel morphology, three-dimensional flow structure, and depositional processes associated with modern and active point bars remains incomplete. Thus, the goal of this research is to characterize the morphology, three-dimensional flow structure, and depositional packages associated with point bars along a series of bends with different curvature and channel planform through detailed field measurements and relate to previous literature and current conceptual models.

Chapter 3 investigates the morphology of point bars by comparing estimates of channel curvature to channel and point bar characteristics including width, …

Cultivating Water Literacy In Stem Education: Undergraduates’ Socio-Scientific Reasoning About Socio-Hydrologic Issues, David C. Owens, Destini N. Petitt, Diane Lally, Cory Forbes

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Water-literate individuals effectively reason about the hydrologic concepts that underlie socio-hydrological issues (SHI), but functional water literacy also requires concomitant reasoning about the societal, non-hydrological aspects of SHI. Therefore, this study explored the potential for the socio-scientific reasoning construct (SSR), which includes consideration of the complexity of issues, the perspectives of stakeholders involved, the need for ongoing inquiry, skepticism about information sources, and the affordances of science toward the resolution of the issue, to aid undergraduates in acquiring such reasoning skills. In this fixed, embedded mixed methods study (N = 91), we found SHI to hold great potential as meaningful …

Deep Reinforcement Learning For The Optimization Of Building Energy Control And Management, Jun Hao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Most of the current game-theoretic demand-side management methods focus primarily on the scheduling of home appliances, and the related numerical experiments are analyzed under various scenarios to achieve the corresponding Nash-equilibrium (NE) and optimal results. However, not much work is conducted for academic or commercial buildings. The methods for optimizing academic-buildings are distinct from the optimal methods for home appliances. In my study, we address a novel methodology to control the operation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVAC).

We assume that each building in our campus is equipped with smart meter and communication system which is envisioned in …

A Systematic Review Of Participatory Scenario Planning To Envision Mountain Social-Ecological Systems Futures, Kelly A. Hopping

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mountain social-ecological systems (MtSES) provide crucial ecosystem services to over half of humanity. However, populations living in these highly varied regions are now confronted by global change. It is critical that they are able to anticipate change to strategically manage resources and avoid potential conflict. Yet, planning for sustainable, equitable transitions for the future is a daunting task, considering the range of uncertainties and the unique character of MtSES. Participatory scenario planning (PSP) can help MtSES communities by critically reflecting on a wider array of innovative pathways for adaptive transformation. Although the design of effective approaches has been widely discussed, …

Size And Density Of Upside-Down Jellyfish, Cassiopea Sp., And Their Impact On Benthic Fluxes In A Caribbean Lagoon, Chester B. Zarnoch, Noshin Hossain, Erika Fusco, Mary Alldred, Timothy J. Hoellein, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Anthropogenic disturbances may be increasing jellyfish populations globally. Epibenthic jellyfish are ideal organisms for studying this phenomenon due to their sessile lifestyle, broad geographic distribution, and prevalence in near-shore coastal environments. There are few studies, however, that have documented epibenthic jellyfish abundance and measured their impact on ecological processes in tropical ecosystems. In this study, the density and size of the upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopea spp.) were measured in Codrington Lagoon, Barbuda. A sediment core incubation study, with and without Cassiopea, also was performed to determine their impact on benthic oxygen and nutrient fluxes. Densities of Cassiopea were 24–168 …

Hyracoidea From The Middle Miocene Hominoid Locality Of Paşalar (Nw Turkey), Martin Pickford, Serdar Mayda, Berna Alpagut, Fatma Arzu Demi̇rel, Ayşegül Şarbak, Tümel Tanju Kaya

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

Previously available samples of Hyracoidea from Paşalar (MN 6, Middle Miocene), Turkey, have indicated the presence of Pliohyracidae at the site, but the material was too scanty for confident identification. The single upper molar, an upper molar ectoloph fragment and an ascending ramal fragment were too uninformative for determining the taxonomic identity of the fossils, although several names have been proposed in the literature. Additional fossils collected from Paşalar include upper and lower premolars, which help to tie down the affinities of this hyracoid. They are attributed to the genus Prohyrax, but were not named specifically, even though they are …

Participatory Water Resource Management: Advancing Engagement In Disadvantaged Communities Across The Santa Ana River Watershed, Jennifer B. Alford

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Santa Ana River Watershed, California, Proposition 1 Integrated Regional Water Management, Disadvantaged Community Involvement Program

The Santa Ana River (SAR) Watershed is the largest, most populated and fastest urbanizing watershed in Southern California, draining an estimated 2,700 square miles of diverse landscape and hydrological features. Headwater streams of the SAR Watershed are located in the San Bernardino National Forest near Big Bear Lake, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the San Jacinto Mountains. These streams traverse the coastal sage habitat through numerous water infrastructure features in the Inland Empire before terminating into the Pacific Ocean at the City of Huntington Beach. …

Iled: Iowa Leadership In Engineering Design, Ken Turner, Anne Turner, Brenda Kaufman

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Based on results of a 2018 Iowa Science Teacher Section survey, the Iowa Science Foundation of the Iowa Academy of Science funded a professional development opportunity focused on engineering design (ISF 19–01). A free one–day workshop was created for school districts in Iowa, and the first was held in fall of 2019. During this workshop, teachers learned more about engineering design, experienced engineering design activities from kindergarten through high school levels, and brainstormed facets of engineering design. The day ended with guiding teachers in writing their own engineering design activities. The workshop was successful and well–received according to a post–workshop …

Chloride Dynamics In Urban Streams: An Eastern Iowa Case Study, Rebecca L. Kauten

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

A series of urban stream and snowmelt samples collected 2017-2018 provide a localized understanding of seasonal chloride concentrations in urban streams and establishes baseline knowledge of conditions in Cedar Rapids and Coralville, Iowa. Results indicate both variability in chloride concentrations based on location as well as conditions under which water was sampled.

Number Of Shoes Tested During A Running Shoe Mass Perception Task May Not Influence Accuracy, James G. Saxton, Joel G. Greenya, Christopher L. Kliethermes, David S. Senchina

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Commercially available running shoes differ in terms of their relative masses. It is unclear how well consumers may be able to judge mass differences from wearing alone, though previous studies suggest that perceptual outcomes may be influenced by experimental design factors such as the length of time worn. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the number of shoes used in a testing session impacts wearers’ mass perceptual accuracy. Forty-eight young adult males ran for 5 min in 4 pairs of shoes (their own running shoes plus 3 unfamiliar pairs) before being asked whether an unfamiliar running shoe …

Interview With Deborah Winslow Of The National Science Foundation, Jerome W. Crowder, Mike Fortun, Rachel Besara, Lindsay Poirier

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Books

Chapter Abstract:

In this chapter the editors interview Dr. Deborah Winslow about her work at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the evolution of data management plans (DMPs) in Anthropology and the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). She outlines what the NSF expects to see in a DMP and what not to include. The conversation moves into how anthropologists collaborate with “adjacent disciplines” and how the ideas and terms for data, and the expectations of data change. She emphasizes thinking about the kind of data you will collect and what you plan to do with those data later, in …

Cover

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Climate And Surging Of Donjek Glacier, Yukon, Canada, Ellyn M. Enderlin

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Links between climate and glacier surges are poorly understood but are required to enable prediction of surges and mitigation of associated hazards. Here, we investigate the role of snow accumulation, rain, and temperature on surge periodicity, area changes, and timing of surge initiation since the 1930s at Donjek Glacier, Yukon, Canada. Snow accumulation measured in three ice cores collected at Eclipse Icefield indicates that a cumulative accumulation of 15.5 ± 1.46 or 16.6 ± 2.0 m w.e. occurred in the ten to twelve years between each of its last eight surges, depending on ice motion spatiotemporal offset corrections. Although we …

Designing A Student Exchange Program: Facilitating Interdisciplinary, Mathematics-Focused Collaboration Among College Students, Bryan D. Poole, Linden Turner, Caroline Maher-Boulis

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

Interdisciplinary collaboration is necessary for students’ professional preparation (Laird et al., 2014; Repko, 2014) and may promote effective learning transfer of course content. Such collaborations have resulted in enhanced problem-solving skills and conceptual understanding of statistics content (Dierker et al., 2012; Everett, 2016; Hammersley et al., 2019; Woodzicka et al., 2015). As a result of ongoing collaborations between faculty members in different disciplines and at different universities, we created a “Student Exchange Program” to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration between undergraduate students in mathematics and social sciences. In the current paper, we describe past research that informed the design of this program, …

Governance Of Arctic Shipping: Rethinking Risks, Human Impacts And Regulation, Aldo Chircop, Floris Goerlandt, Claudio Aporta, Ronald Pelot

OER Texts

This open access book is a result of the Dalhousie-led research project Safe Navigation and Environment Protection, supported by a grant from the Ocean Frontier Institute’s the Canada First Research Excellent Fund (CFREF). The book focuses on Arctic shipping and investigates how ocean change and anthropogenic impacts affect our understanding of risk, policy, management and regulation for safe navigation, environment protection, conflict management between ocean uses, and protection of Indigenous peoples’ interests. A rapidly changing Arctic as a result of climate change and ice loss is rendering the North more accessible, providing new opportunities while producing impacts on the Arctic. …

Organizational Culture And Knowledge Transfer In Enterprise Social Media, Garry Blackstock

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Enterprise social media (ESM), digital platforms used within organizations to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration, are valuable tools that can help organizations gain a competitive advantage. Efficient retention, dissemination, and transfer of knowledge is an industry differentiator, and companies are spending a tremendous amount of resources on ESM to achieve this discriminating advantage. The behavior of transferring knowledge, especially tacit knowledge, can be a challenging task. Discordant organizational culture has been identified as a barrier to efficient knowledge transfer, whether it is explicit or tacit. Despite ESM’s positive track record of promoting communication, it lacks the efficiency to facilitate knowledge …

Protecting The Protector: Mapping The Key Terrain That Supports The Continuous Monitoring Mission Of A Cloud Cybersecurity Service Provider, Chris Bush

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Key terrain is a concept that is relevant to warfare, military strategy, and tactics. A good general maps out terrain to identify key areas to protect in support of a mission (i.e., a bridge allowing for mobility of supplies and reinforcements). Effective ways to map terrain in Cyberspace (KT-C) has been an area of interest for researchers in Cybersecurity ever since the Department of Defense designated Cyberspace as a warfighting domain. The mapping of KT-C for a mission is accomplished by putting forth efforts to understand and document a mission's dependence on Cyberspace and cyber assets. A cloud Cybersecurity Service …

Stable Carbon And Oxygen Isotopes As Environmental Indicators Of The Late Pleistocene Inel Arenoso, Sonora, Northwest Mexico, Victor Adrian Perez Crespo, Tamara Cruz Y Cruz, Alejandro Terrazas Mata, Pedro Morales Puente, Martha Benavente, Edith Cienfuegos-Alvrado, Francisco J. Otero

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

The paleoenvironment conditions that existed in the Late Pleistocene at the archaeological-paleontological site of El Arenoso, Sonora, NW Mexico, were inferred using the carbon and oxygen stable isotopes from one bison, one mammoth, and thirteen horses as well as the pedological characteristics and the carbon isotopes of calcium carbonates from paleosoil. The values δ13C of the bison (-1.4‰), the horses (-2.8‰), and the mammoth (-4.3‰) show that these animals fed mainly on C4 plants and carbon isotopic values from profile horizons of locality 4Bgk (-3.4‰), 3Ck (-3.4‰), and 2Bgk2 (-5.7‰) indicated the presence of C3/C4 vegetation mixed in El Arenoso. …