Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of 2d And 1d Modeling On Mapping Aquatic Habitat Quality, Rohan Benjankar, Daniele Tonina, Jim Mckean

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The distribution of aquatic habitat at the organism scale, i.e. 1 by 1m or smaller is typically predicted from local physical characteristics of stream flow, bed, banks and sediment characteristics and a set of biological preference curves. The flow properties are typically predicted with numerical modeling whereas stream bed and bank characteristics defined from interpolated DEM generated by topographical surveys and field observations. Information on the effects of flow properties and streambed morphology due to numerical modeling dimensionality on aquatic habitat modeling is limited. Two-dimensional (2D) modeling is becoming the most popular method to map micro-habitat but its application is …

Predicting Baseflow Using Genetic Programing, Ali Meshgi, Petra Schmitter, Vladan Babovic, Ting Fong May Chui

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Developing reliable methods to estimate baseflow has been a subject of research interest over the past decades due to its importance in catchment response and sustainable watershed management (e.g. ground water recharge vs. extraction). Limitations and complexities of existing methods have been addressed by a number of researchers. For instance, physically based numerical models are complex, requiring substantial computational time and data which may not be always available. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as Genetic Programming (GP) have been used widely to reduce the challenges associated with complex hydrological systems without losing the physical meanings. However, up to date, in …

An Information Model For Exchanging Hydrological Rating Tables, Peter Taylor, Paul Sheahan, Stuart Hamilton, David Briar, Matthew J. Fry, Michael Natschke, David Valentine, Gavin Walker

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Many hydrological data systems provide Internet access to observational and processed data in various forms, from websites to web services. This data is generally described with basic metadata, such as units, names of measured variables, spatial coordinates, and so on. This metadata is largely suitable for further analysis or ingestion into hydrological models. However, when the data has been processed through many – potentially complex – steps, more information is required to give users details of implicit assumptions, inaccuracies, or uncertainties that may have been introduced. A common example of this within hydrology is the use of ratings tables to …

Interactive Web-Based Flood Simulation System As An Education Platform For Hydrological Concepts, Ibrahim Demir

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Recent developments in web technologies make it easy to manage and visualize large data sets with general public. Novel visualization techniques and dynamic user interfaces allow users to create realistic environments, and interact with data to gain insight from simulations and environmental observations. The floodplain simulation system is a web-based 3D interactive flood simulation environment to create real world flooding scenarios. The simulation systems provides a visually striking platform with realistic terrain information, and water simulation. Students can create and modify predefined scenarios, control environmental parameters, and evaluate flood mitigation techniques. The web-based simulation system provides an environment for students …

Delivering And Evaluating Multiple Flood Risk Benefits In Blue-Green Cities, Nigel G. Wright, Colin Thorne

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

In the UK a research consortium has been funded to develop new strategies for managing urban flood risk as part of wider, integrated urban planning intended to achieve environmental enhancement and urban renewal in which multiple benefits of Blue-Green Cities are rigorously evaluated and understood. This approach is very much part of the resilience paradigm and seeks to develop the socio-technical tools required to fully evaluate resilience options as part of a wider system. The Consortium’s objectives are to: Put competent authorities, businesses and communities at the centre of the research by establishing feedback pathways between them and the FRM …

A New Automated Approach To Sewershed Delineation For Urban Drainage Modelling Studies: A City Of Toronto Case Study, Saalih M. Shamead, Celia Fan, Weihua Cao, Doug Banting, Darko Joksimovic, James Li

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Toronto Water is developing a new detailed urban drainage model of the City's combined service area. The traditional manual delineation of sewersheds by the City of Toronto, deemed a tedious and subjective process, was not efficient enough to develop the large model. Instead, an automated approach was developed relying upon the powerful Arc Hydro Engine that helps eliminate the subjectivity of the former process and potentially holds great promise in being applied elsewhere. The process considers the topography of the urban environment by burning in both the roads and storm and combined sewers with catch basins attached to them while …

City Of Toronto’S Approach On Implementing The New Federal Wastewater Effluent Regulations Using A Gis-Based Hydrologic And Hydraulic Model, Celia Fan, Weihua Cao, Darko Joksimovic, James Li, Doug Banting, Saalih M. Shamead, Jian Lei

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Canada releases over 150 billion litres of untreated and undertreated wastewater into the water environment every year1. To clean up urban wastewater, new Federal Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations (WSER) on establishing national baseline effluent quality standards that are achievable through secondary wastewater treatment were enacted on July 18, 2012. With respect to the wastewater from the combined sewer overflows (CSO), the Regulations require the municipalities to report the annual quantity and frequency of effluent discharges. The City of Toronto currently has about 300 CSO locations within an area of approximately 16,550 hectares. The total sewer length of the CSO area …

Does Hyporheic Intensity Explain Spawning Site Selection?, Rohan Benjankar, Daniele Tonina, Jim Mckean, Daniel J. Isaak

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Pool, riffle and runs are streambed features and important habitats for aquatic species. It is well-known that salmonid species utilize these streambed features as spawning site. Pools are characterized by deep water depth, low velocity and gentle water surface slope, whereas riffles are characterized by shallow depth, high velocity and steep slope. Past studies have used hydrodynamic model simulated hydraulic characteristics such as depth, velocity and shear stress to delineate these features. However, the magnitude of these hydraulic characteristics may vary significantly with the discharge and longitudinal slope of the stream. Additionally, these indexes still do not entirely explain the …

Mtn Mobile Money Technology As A Convinient Option For Water Utility Bills In Uganda, Agnes Namuli

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

In the past, the public struggled to stand long hours and travelling long distances to pay watebills in Uganda urban centres. This made people become reluctant to pay for water bills leading to continious water cut offs and loosing trust in the National Water and Sewerage Cooperation in Uganda. The use of mobile money technology has changed and made access to water in the urban centres more effective and efficiency. The convenience of MTN Mobile money to the public came as a real time solution and has eliminated delays in updating customer accounts as well as reduce on the physical …

Deterministic Hydrological Model For Flood Risk Assessment Of Mexico City, Vargas Bringas Rafael, Gourbesville Philippe

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Mexico City is facing problems of flooding in some areas at certain times of the year, causing important losses and damages on properties and residents including some casualties. Therefore, it is important to carry out a flood risk assessment in the catchment of Mexico City and estimate damages of probable flood events. However, limited data of observed discharges and water depths in the main rivers of the city are available, and this represents an obstacle for the understanding of flooding in Mexico City. The objective of the developed tool is to provide an efficient support to management of the flood …

Enabling Access To Non-Point Source Risk Mapping Tools Using Open Source Software And Open Geospatial Consortium (Ogc) Standards : The Development Of The Scimap Webapp, Peter Wells, Sim Reaney

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

No-point (diffuse) pollution is a key environmental pressure effecting water quality and ecology in lakes and rivers. Many governmental and NGO bodies are working to tacking the problem but their efforts are constrained by the complexities of the problem. To enable the spatial targeting of the mitigation measures at the landscape scale, the SCIMAP risk mapping approach was developed by Durham and Lancaster Universities in the UK. The approach was well received but the desktop implementation created problems for users. NGO users generally did not have the required datasets or GIS skills. Governmental users within a corporate managed IT environment …

Sesame: Finding Ways Of Promoting Sme Adaptation To Flood Risk, Graham Coates, Nigel G. Wright, Sangaralingam Ahilan, Dabo Guan, Martina Mcguinness, N. Johnson, Lindsey Mcewen, Tim Harries

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Small and medium-sized companies and other enterprises (SMEs) around the world are exposed to flood risk and many of the 4.5 million in the UK are at risk. As SMEs represent almost half of total business turnover in the UK, their protection is a vital part of the drive for greater climate change resilience. However, few have measures in place to ensure the continuity of their activities during a flood and its aftermath. The SESAME project aims to develop tools that encourage businesses to discover ways of becoming more resilient to floods and to appreciate how much better off they …

A Management Indicator Program For Water Operating Agencies, Martha Patricia Hansen Rodríguez, Víctor Hugo Alcocer Yamanaka, Yenni Laurel Varela

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The management indicator program for operating agencies (PIGOO, for its initials in Spanish) specifies a set of 28 management indicators that help to measure the operational aspects, financial aspects and efficiencies of potable water supply systems. Ideally, the performance indicators of an operating agency should be linked to an objective or strategy established by that same agency. The performance indicators are calculated based on annual data, variables such as the volume of water produced, the number of employees, total income and expenditures, rate of leaks and claims. The Mexican Institute of Water Technology has conducted PIGOO since 2005. From 2005 …

Reliability Of Simulated Discharges For Different Gauge Locations In A Semi Distributed Rainfall Runoff Model, Johannes Bellinger, Stefan Achleitner, Johannes Schöber, Friedrich Schöberl

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

In terms of flood forecasting in alpine environments, predictions at different gauges as well as sites with exposed infrastructure within the catchment are required. The used semi-distributed hydrological model HQsim combines runoff formation and surface runoff routines with an implemented channel routing for river reaches. This allows the estimation of discharges at selected channel segments. As a case study a large alpine catchment with a size of 890 km² is used. The uncertainty in the discharge prediction is investigated at three discharge gauges located along the main river. The basis of our experimental set-up are 15,000 samples describing the prior …

Processing Government Data: Zip Codes, Python, And Openrefine, Frank Donnelly

Publications and Research

While there is a vast amount of useful US government data on the web, some of it is in a raw state that is not readily accessible to the average user. Data librarians can improve accessibility and usability for their patrons by processing data to create subsets of local interest and by appending geographic identifiers to help users select and aggregate data. This case study illustrates how census geography crosswalks, Python, and OpenRefine were used to create spreadsheets of non-profit organizations in New York City from the IRS Tax-Exempt Organization Masterfile. This paper illustrates the utility of Python for data …

A Good Compromise: Rapid And Robust Species Proxies For Inventorying Biodiversity Hotspots Using The Terebridae (Gastropoda: Conoidea), Maria Vittoria Modica, Nicolas Puillandre, Magalie Castelin, Yu Zhang, Mandë Holford

Publications and Research

Devising a reproducible approach for species delimitation of hyperdiverse groups is an ongoing challenge in evolutionary biology. Speciation processes combine modes of passive and adaptive trait divergence requiring an integrative taxonomy approach to accurately generate robust species hypotheses. However, in light of the rapid decline of diversity on Earth, complete integrative approaches may not be practical in certain species-rich environments. As an alternative, we applied a two-step strategy combining ABGD (Automated Barcode Gap Discovery) and Klee diagrams, to balance speed and accuracy in producing primary species hypotheses (PSHs). Specifically, an ABGD/Klee approach was used for species delimitation in the Terebridae, …

Discriminatory Maintenance Of Reo Properties As A Violation Of The Federal Fair Housing Act, Stephen M. Dane, Tara Ramchandani, Anne P. Bellows

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comparative Population Assessments Of Nautilus Sp. In The Philippines, Australia, Fiji, And American Samoa Using Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems, Gregory Jeff Barord, Frederick Dooley, Andrew Dunstan, Anthony Ilano, Karen N. Keister, Heike Neumeister, Thomas Preuss, Shane Schoepfer, Peter D. Ward

Publications and Research

The extant species of Nautilus and Allonautilus (Cephalopoda) inhabit fore-reef slope environments across a large geographic area of the tropical western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans. While many aspects of their biology and behavior are now well-documented, uncertainties concerning their current populations and ecological role in the deeper, fore-reef slope environments remain. Given the historical to current day presence of nautilus fisheries at various locales across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, a comparative assessment of the current state of nautilus populations is critical to determine whether conservation measures are warranted. We used baited remote underwater video systems (BRUVS) to make …

Modeling Information Diffusion In University Libraries: Assessing Peer Interaction Patterns As A Complex Dynamic System, W. Michael Johnson, Danuta A. Nitecki

CUNY Library Assessment Conference

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014.

The New Star Of 1572 And The Ascendancy Of The Mathematical Over The Causal Epistemology Of Natural Philosophy, Douglas William Godley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The arrival of the new star of 1572, the first nova recorded in the western canon of natural philosophy startled and challenged the scientific community of the age. As they worked to observe and to understand the nature of this new star, astronomers across Europe quickly discovered that the traditional intellectual tools that they had come to respect and rely upon when observing the heavens were by and large useless in helping them to gather data, and thus to come to conclusions about the star's location, its physical nature and its meaning. In the records that contemporaries have left, modern …

Women In Foreclosure: Social Reproduction & Mortgage Strain In The Subprime Era, Amy Baker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Advisor: Professor Mimi Abramovitz

This research captures the experiences of 31 single female homeowners with risky lending markets and mortgage foreclosure in the city of Philadelphia. In-depth, semi-structured interviewing was employed to build knowledge about single women's experiences with seeking a loan, buying a home, entering default and attempting to stall foreclosure. Thematic analysis of the data demonstrated that risky lending and foreclosure did not mark the onset of financial instability among study participants. Instead, it functioned as a tipping point for single women unable to access upward mobility and asset accrual throughout the lifespan. Women's status as the strongest …

The Role Of Water In The Rise, Prominence, And Decline Of Nabataean Petra, Dennis Cummins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper evaluates the rise of Nabataean Petra, its prominence, and eventual decline. The predominant context is effective water management as a pivotal driving factor in the growth of the Nabataean kingdom, which fostered an environment in which its famous incense trade could develop. Rising incense demand was the catalyst for growth from the first century BC through the first century AD; in AD 106 when Rome annexed the Nabataean kingdom, Petra began its gradual decline. In AD 363 an earthquake destroyed much of the city, and Petra did not return to its earlier prominence. From the outset, water played …

Saudi Aramco And The Politics Of Cultural Heritage, Anahid Hanounik Huth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Culture Heritage in recent decades has become a catch word within world discourse. It is increasingly receiving generous attention in both money and time form private and public sectors on preservation policy. The application of so-called preservation and restoration projects, the alleged care for Cultural Heritage, has become a motive and battle cry of UNESCO, World Bank, private companies, banks, NGOs, European Council, and Western governments' foreign policy. This leads us to ask what is behind this increasing attention, and whether we should see it as Christina Luke 2013 suggested in her article--is Heritage increasingly being seen as a soft …

Aging Out Of The Spectrum Of Cultural Visibility, Darthea M. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I argue that the valorization of youth and the subsequent quest for agelessness has caused such an explosion of ageism that the elderly have been relegated to a culturally invisible status. The intersection of age and gender is doubly problematic for women due to sexism and the perennial objectification of the female body. Thinking of visibility as a measure of social acceptability, the consequences of cultural disappearance for the aging woman is an important site for investigation and theorizing. This thesis depicts the erasure of aging women from the cultural landscape as an effect of media representation and self-care work …

Gay And Lesbian Travel Writing: A Present In Need Of A Different Future, Michael Verdirame

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The first half of this thesis will detail the history of travel, as well as the primary reasons why people travel and why it is such a lucrative industry. This will be followed by an account of the history of travel writing, with a specific emphasis on the various types of avenues available to travel writers and the reasons why people feel compelled to write about their travels. The first half will then conclude with a content analysis of three current gay and lesbian travel publications available on different media platforms--Passport Magazine as an online magazine, Man About World as …

Ethnic Language Maintenance: A Case Study Of Second-Generation Iranian Americans In The Northeastern States, Maryam Moeini Meybodi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As a relatively new, highly educated and professional group, Iranian Americans show distinctive language usage patterns. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) and 48 interviews with East Coast Iranian Americans, this thesis explores the attitudes and behavior of children of Iranian immigrants and their parents toward learning and preserving their native language: Persian. Although the literature points to the erosion of parental language among the second generation and its extinction by the third generation, the results of this study suggest otherwise, at least for young children. Findings show that parents and children had positive attitude and behavior toward …

Paris And Havana: A Century Of Mutual Influence, Laila Pedro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach to trace the history of exchange and influence between Cuban, French, and Francophone Caribbean artists in the twentieth century. I argue, first, that there is a unique and largely unexplored tradition of dialogue, collaboration, and mutual admiration between Cuban, French and Francophone artists; second, that a recurring and essential theme in these artworks is the representation of the human body; and third, that this relationship ought not to be understood within the confines of a single genre, but must be read as a series of dialogues that are both ekphrastic (that is, they rely …

Provisional Fictions: Discontinuous Selves And The Making Of Meaning, Tara Roeder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My project is an exploration of trauma-based meaning-making practices and reader response across a variety of sites. By teasing out some of the complex connections among trauma, narrative, and audience that may occur in spaces ranging from non-linear memoir to courtroom testimony to the writing classroom, I engage with the inherently dialogic nature of making meaning from trauma, and examine some of the ways in which women who engage in recursive, embodied rhetorical practices can productively disrupt conventional expectations of the function of trauma narratives. Chapter One examines the formal, linguistic, and philosophical choices made by women memoirists who challenge …

How Silently Sheela-Na-Gig Speaks: Memory, Mythos, And The Female Body, Amber C. Snider

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How and why do we destroy female agency, still today? Focusing on some of the mythical foundations and formations found in ancient Celtic and Greek imaginings, the "bodily" aspects in particular, this thesis traces the ways in which some of the modern women intellectuals receive or reject the typical feminist or female elements found in mythologies; the elided nature of the female trinity and the life giver-destroyer circularity inherent in goddesses and archetypes, for instance, appears to mirror our cultural impulse to destroy the female body. It is then not enough to create a new mythology by and for women--we …

Brothers In Motion: Religious Practice, Political Action, And The Mobilization Of The Early Muslim Brotherhood, Ian Henry Vandermeulen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In light of Randy Martin's proposal to use dance as an analytic tool for understanding social movements, this article seeks to reconstruct the early mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood as "bodies in motion." Through a re-examination of both primary and secondary source material, this study highlights the ways in which founder Hasan al-Banna appropriated both Islamic and colonial choreographic logics into the Muslim Brotherhood's pious training regimen, scouting programs, political expression, and social welfare projects. I argue that the Muslim Brotherhood was mobilized through al-Banna's revival of traditional Islamic practices concerning the body, reconfigured for the goal not of otherworldly …