Influence Of Occupation And Geographic Location On Underground Coal Miner Exposure To Respirable Crystalline Silica, Quantez Ramaud Crowe

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

I. Specific Aims:

i. Review potential factors contributing to the resurgence of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP) in Appalachia and analyze the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) Complete Quartz dataset for potential contributors of underground (UG) coal miner exposure to silica and coal dust.

Objectives:

1. i. To provide evidence of an association between silica and coal dust exposure and various UG coal miner occupations and mine locations.
2. ii. Explore changes over time in UG coal miner silica exposure, dust exposure, and silica concentration in samples collected.
3. iii. Determine if UG coal miners have experienced an increase in exposure to silica …

Association Between Pm2.5 And The Coexistence Of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease And Coronary Heart Disease, Shan Gao

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

Aim: To identify PM2.5 as a risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and coronary heart disease (CHD) respectively, and to explore the magnitude of the association of PM2.5 with the coexistence of CHD and COPD, by using the combined dataset of 1999-2014 EPA Air Data and 2017 BRFSS SMART data (age 18 and older).

Methods: Cross-sectional study was designed to identify the association between PM2.5 exposure and COPD and CHD. The PM2.5 exposure values were adapted from the county-level EPAAir Data, the yearly mean values of PM2.5 were used to determine the association. Characteristics of sex, age, race, …

Setting The Stage: Resident Experiences With Enforcement, Rescue And Spectacle In Lampedusa, Elisa Sperandio

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Located 127 miles from the shores of Sicily and only 70 from Tunisia, the island of Lampedusa is home to a population of 6000. Residents are largely reliant on a centuries-old fishing economy, a booming tourism industry and, most recently, the sustainment of a complex apparatus of border enforcement. Since the early 2000s, with the hardening of the southern border of Italy and the European Union, a multitude of actors have converged to Lampedusa: from migrants, to agents of enforcement, to NGO personnel, along with journalists, researchers and tourists. In this thesis, I center the experiences of island residents to …

Unsettling Refuge: Syrian Refugees’ Account Of Life In Denmark, Malene H. Jacobsen

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This doctoral dissertation examines the lived experiences of refuge in Denmark from the perspectives of Syrian refugees. Situated within feminist political geography, it moves beyond examining geopolitics merely from the perspective of the law, the state, and policy makers. Instead, it seeks to grasp the ways in which geopolitics are encountered, experienced, and negotiated on the ground – by the people who are most affected by state policies and practices. It draws on more than ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Denmark with Syrian refugees, including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observations, as well as interviews with state and …

Where We Belong: Spatial Imagining In American Women’S Life Narratives, 1859-1912, Gokce Tekeli

Theses and Dissertations--English

Where We Belong: Spatial Imagining in American Women’s Life Narratives, 1859-1912, studies three marginalized and disadvantaged American women’s self-life narratives during a transitional period in American history. In this dissertation, I am taking an interdisciplinary approach. Where We Belong borrows from social geography, new materialism, and autobiography studies in order to complicate critical discussions of women’s space and place in nineteenth-century women’s self-life narratives. Each chapter of Where We Belong presents a case study with the goal to provide a broader understanding of women’s strategies of belonging due to and despite their spatial exclusions. The overarching emphasis in each …

Nineteenth-Century Pets And The Politics Of Touch, Valerie L. Stevens

Theses and Dissertations--English

Nineteenth-Century Pets and the Politics of Touch examines texts of the era in which both humans and animals find empowerment at the point of physical encounter. I challenge contemporary perceptions of human-pet relationships as sweetly affectionate by focusing on touch. I uncover an earlier interest in the close reciprocal relationships between human and nonhuman animals, arguing that these nineteenth-century thinkers presented what I call a “politics of touch,” in which intimate and often jarring physical encounters allow for mutuality and autonomy. I first turn to Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley (1849) and protective violence, a condoned ferocity that frequently unites and guards …

“I’Ve Known Rivers:” Representations Of The Mississippi River In African American Literature And Culture, Catherine Gooch

Theses and Dissertations--English

My dissertation, titled “I’ve Known Rivers”: Representations of the Mississippi River in African American Literature and Culture, uncovers the impact of the Mississippi River as a powerful, recurring geographical feature in twentieth-century African American literature that conveys the consequences of capitalist expansion on the individual and communal lives of Black Americans. Recent scholarship on the Mississippi River theorizes the relationship between capitalism, geography, and slavery. Walter Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom, Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: A Global History, and Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the …

Fathers And Sons In Modern British, Irish, And Postcolonial Fiction, Alison Hitch

Theses and Dissertations--English

In this dissertation, I examine the portrayal of filial relationships in the fiction of James Joyce, Hanif Kureishi, and Zadie Smith. I assert that each of these authors, albeit in different ways, uses the archetypal father and son relationship to interrogate the formation of national identity and the concept of national belonging in modern, anticolonial or postcolonial cultures, including Ireland at the dawn of the twentieth century and Britain in the late twentieth century. Chapter one focuses on Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ulysses (1922). I argue that rather than solely bonding in …

El Enclave Bananero En Las Novelas Centroamericanas De Miguel Angel Asturias, Ramon Amaya Amador Y Carlos Luis Fallas, Johana Pérez Weisenberger

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The Central American literary community and historiographical critics maintain a constant dialogue in regards to banana literature. Authors such as Asturias, Fallas, and Amador capture the pervasive nature of the banana enclave in their works. My research reveals the ways in which capitalist power controls and redefines spaces in the banner enclave. By taking a closer look these novels reveal the monopolistic power of the United Fruit Company exploits and destroys the natural space, this manuscript becomes a geographical map of the fictionalized banana enclaves, exposing the capitalist oppressing forces, which dominate nature and control the company workers.

Chapter one …

Poéticas Minimalistas De La Ciudad Contemporánea: Iribarren, Mínguez Y Del Val, David Delgado López

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Throughout the Spanish poetic production of the 20^th century, cities have developed a relevant role as a recurring space at the same time as society urbanized and an exodus took place from agricultural areas to the work centers offered by the cities. Since the second half of the 19^th century the city has been the meeting place for people from different backgrounds where the poet found, from his exclusive point of view, a new universe to develop in his work. However, the evolution of capitalist society sponsored the poet's transition from an artist to a worker in the …

History Speaks From The Soil: A Case Study Of Commons Enclosure In The Clearance Era On North And South Uist, Anna Rachel Herrington

Theses and Dissertations--History

This thesis argues that commons enclosure in the Clearance Era on the Uist island group in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland was a direct result of the Clearances on those islands in the 18^th and 19^th centuries and how the enclosure of commons on these islands was catastrophic to those communities who had functioned, worked, and thrived in those regions for millennia. Commons and commons systems are those resources such as land, water, and produce either from agriculture or natural harvesting which contribute to human habitation and existence in a particular geographic area. Commons and commons systems on …

Agricultural Livelihoods In Harlan County: A Case Study Approach Of Two Farms, Heather Kinney

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

This thesis explores agricultural livelihoods in Harlan County with two case studies in order to challenge dominant narratives about Eastern Kentucky. Harlan County, and Appalachia more broadly, is often written about in terms of its relationship to extractive industries. Absentee landownership in Appalachia has been well documented, especially in the case of coal counties. However, the relationship between extraction and agricultural livelihoods in Appalachia warrants more attention. The story of agricultural livelihoods in the region is often pushed to the periphery much like the practices of “hillside” farming. While geography makes much of the land unsuitable for farming in Harlan …

Constraints And Opportunities In Community-Led Food Justice Models, Teya Cuellar

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Non-profits that do community-led food justice work with lower income communities face particular constraints and opportunities. This study examined those constraints and opportunities through participant observation of one such organization and interviews with four other organizations. Findings include the diversity of definitions for “community-led,” assets that can help or constrain the organization, and diversity in defining “scaling up” their organization models and missions. The organizations that heavily focused on lower income consumers noted tensions with the board of the non- profit and lack of engagement of consumers. I conclude by critiquing using language such as “models,” “scaling up,” or “replicating” …

The Role Of Place In Community Cooperative Food Markets In Lexington, Kentucky, Emily Rodes Spencer

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Food justice movements focus on providing communities with local, sustainable, culturally appropriate, healthy food while empowering local economic systems that allow for autonomy of both producers and consumers (Caruso, C., 2014; Cadieux, K., 2015; Hayes, C. & Carbone, E., 2015). However, current food justice movements often price out and leave behind large portions of the population. Research has shown that engagement with local food systems contribute to feelings of place attachment and a sense of place (Solin, J., 2017; Alkon, A., 2011). The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between volunteers at two alternative, cooperative community food …

Essays On Institutions And Development, Andrew Jonelis

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

The essays in this dissertation examine how political institutions affect economic development. In the first essay, I examine how executive control of the legislature shapes the time horizon of governing politicians and its effect on economic growth. The second essay examines how border changes over the past two centuries have provided different areas within modern countries with different institutional histories and how this affects the geographic concentration of economic activity. For the final essay, I examine whether elections have an effect on macroeconomic volatility when controlling for the democratic nature of the regime.

The Effects Of Destruction: A Macroeconomic Story, Kara Riesing

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Destructive events such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks occur not only in developing economies but also developed economies. Consequently, the response of these economies has been observed in case of both type of events. This dissertation is a collection of essays regarding natural disasters, terrorist attacks and the macroeconomy. Specifically, I examine the response of local labor markets that reflect a wide spectrum of economies, but also have a safety-net in the form of being part of a developed country in the aftermath of a violent tornado. Further, I explore the heterogeneity in the economies response to natural disasters …

In Black And White: Richmond’S Monument Avenue Recontextualized Through The Photographic Archive, Charlsa Anne Hensley

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

The release of the Monument Avenue Commission Report in July, 2018 was the culmination of over one year of research and collaboration with community members of Richmond, Virginia on how the city should approach the contentious history of Monument Avenue’s five Confederate centerpieces. What the monuments have symbolized within the predominately rich, white neighborhood and outside of its confines has been a matter of debate ever since they were unveiled, but the recent publicity accorded to Confederate monuments has led to considerations by historians, city leaders, and the public regarding recontextualization of Confederate monuments.

Recontextualization of the monuments should not …

A Gis Model For Apiary Site Selection Based On Proximity To Nectar Sources Utilized In Varietal Honey Production On Former Mine Sites In Appalachia, Douglass W. Potter

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

Beekeepers in Appalachia market varietal honeys derived from particular species of deciduous trees; however, finding places in a mountainous landscape to locate new beeyards is difficult. Site selection is hindered by the high up-front costs of negotiating access to remote areas with limited knowledge of the available forage. Remotely sensed data and species distribution modeling (SDM) of trees important to beekeepers could aid in locating apiary sites at the landscape scale. The objectives of this study are i) using publicly available forest inventory data, to model the spatial distribution of three native tree species that are important to honey producers …

The Impact Of A Fruit And Vegetable Farmers' Market Voucher Prescription Program On A Low-Income Rural Population, Kevin Anthony Richie

Theses and Dissertations--Nutrition and Food Systems

Objective: Measures the impact of the Farmers’ Market Voucher program on weight, body mass index, waist circumference, during the 2016 summer on a rural, low-income population residing in Appalachian Kentucky.

Background: Rural communities often have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables (FV) which contributes to low levels of consumption. FV are calorie poor, nutrient dense and are inversely associated with inflammation markers, obesity, hypertension, and high blood glucose levels. Appalachian rural communities have a higher prevalence of obesity, diabetes, strokes, and death by heart attack when compared to the U.S. Farmers’ markets

Methods: Pre-experimental intervention design examining FV consumption …

Tuition Revenue Distribution Models In Higher Education: An Exploration Of Alternative Tuition Funding Methods At The University Of Kentucky, Megan A. Bowles

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

State appropriations for higher education have been volatile during the past decade. While some states have seen improvements in state appropriations since the last recession, other states have seen continued declines. For public colleges and universities facing these consistent decreases in appropriations they have had to develop alternative methods for revenue generation. One of the most common changes to a university’s revenue model is by increasing their tuition and fee rates. Public colleges and universities can increase their own tuition and fees, within the boundaries of state oversight boards like the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE). This is a big …

Resilience And Adaptation In A World System Periphery: Long-Term Perspectives From The Lake Atitlan Basin, Highland Guatemala 600 Bc – 1600 Ad, Gavin R. Davies

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

The Lake Atitlan Basin of highland Guatemala boasted fertile soils and was rich in natural resources, making it an attractive area for permanent settlement. However, the region lacked a number of important items, such as salt, cotton, and obsidian, all of which had to be obtained through trade. Good agricultural land was also scarce in certain parts of the lake and the steep hillslopes were easily eroded, making it necessary for communities to maintain access to emergency supplies of corn. Lake Atitlan’s communities were therefore highly dependent on exchanges with neighboring groups who occupied contrasting ecological zones, especially those in …

An Analysis Of Mergers And Acquisitions In Non-Profit Organizations, Shakiyla K. Davis

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This paper hypothesizes that poor planning of merger or acquisitions will lead to increased issues within the organization. To effectively examine the hypothesis, the paper provides an overview of mergers and acquisitions. The paper highlights the process and considerations of a merger and acquisition and uses examples to provide insight on successful and unsuccessful partnerships.

Female Disparity And Political Participation In The Kentucky State Legislature; The Presence Of Female Legislative Candidates And Their Effect On Voter Turnout In The Kentucky Electorate, Trenton K. Patrick

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Female disparity in the political process in the state of Kentucky follows the same distinct pattern of female disparity all across state legislatures in the United States, and in the federal legislative branch. Female representation and parity in the political process is vital to the success of governmental bodies due to the benefits that the female perspective offers to governmental processes. After extensive review of the existing literature, it is clear that there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding how the presence of a female candidate effects the total turnout rate, female turnout rate, and …

Middle To Late Holocene (7200-2900 Cal. Bp) Archaeological Site Formation Processes At Crumps Sink And The Origins Of Anthropogenic Environments In Central Kentucky, Usa, Justin Nels Carlson

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Though some researchers have argued that the Big Barrens grasslands of Kentucky were the product of anthropogenic land clearing practices by Native Americans, heretofore, this hypothesis had not been tested archaeologically. More work was needed to refine chronologies of fire activity in the region, determine the extent to which humans played a role in the process, and integrate these findings with the paleoenvironmental and archaeological record. With these goals in mind, I conducted archaeological and geoarchaeological investigations at Crumps Sink in the Sinkhole Plain of Kentucky. The archaeological record and site formation history of Crumps Sink were compared with environmental …

Making Experts: An Ethnographic Study Of “Makers” In Fablabs In Japan, Vaughn M. Krebs

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

“Makers” around the world cohere in a digital and physical network of technology hobbyists. “Makers" are open-source hardware enthusiasts who use machines like 3D printers and laser cutters - manufacturing tools that have only recently become accessible to laypeople - to make things. “Makers" share a vision for a world where everyone would be able to make almost anything, supplanting top-down economic systems and channels of production. This ethnographic research examines a subset of the “maker” community: “makers” in “FabLabs” in Japan. These “FabLabs” are small workshops that house the machines that “makers” need and make them open to the …

Circadian Rhythm Phase Shifts Caused By Timed Exercise Vary With Chronotype In Young Adults, J. Matthew Thomas

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

The circadian system controls 24-hour cycles of behavior and physiology, such as rest-activity and feeding rhythms. The human circadian system synchronizes with, or entrains to, the light/dark cycle (sunrise/sunset) to promote activity and food consumption during the day and rest at night. However, strict work schedules and nighttime light exposure impair proper entrainment of the circadian system, resulting in chronic circadian misalignment. Numerous studies have shown that chronic circadian misalignment results in poor health. Therefore, therapeutic interventions that could shift circadian rhythms and alleviate circadian misalignment could broadly impact public health. Although light is the most salient time cue for …

Post-Wildfire Recovery Of An Upland Oak-Pine Forest On The Cumberland Plateau, Kentucky, Usa, Devin E. Black, Zachary W. Poynter, Claudia A. Cotton, Suraj Upadhaya, David D. Taylor, Wendy Leuenberger, Beth A. Blankenship, Mary A. Arthur

Forestry and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Background: Many forests within the southern Appalachian region, USA, have experienced decades of fire exclusion, contributing to regeneration challenges for species such as oaks (Quercus spp. L.) and pines (Pinus spp. L.), and threatening the maintenance of oak-dominated forests in the future. While the use of prescribed fire as a forest management tool is increasing within this region, there remains a lack of information on the potential role of wildfire. A wildfire within the Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky, USA, provided an opportunity to investigate how wildfire affected forest vegetation response.

Results: We examined the effects of fire …

Intimate Political Economies Of The Andes, Carmen Martínez Novo

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Struggle Is Eternal, Joseph R. Fitzgerald

Civil Rights

Many prominent and well-known figures greatly impacted the civil rights movement, but one of the most influential and unsung leaders of that period was Gloria Richardson. As the leader of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), a multifaceted liberation campaign formed to target segregation and racial inequality in Cambridge, Maryland, Richardson advocated for economic justice and tactics beyond nonviolent demonstrations. Her philosophies and strategies—including her belief that black people had a right to self–defense—were adopted, often without credit, by a number of civil rights and black power leaders and activists.

The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation explores …

Association Between Spatial Access To Food Outlets, Frequency Of Grocery Shopping, And Objectively-Assessed And Self-Reported Fruit And Vegetable Consumption, Jared T. Mcguirt, Stephanie B. Jilcott Pitts, Alison Gustafson

Dietetics and Human Nutrition Faculty Publications

Because supermarkets are a critical part of the community food environment, the purpose of this paper is to examine the association between accessibility to the supermarket where participants were surveyed, frequency of shopping at the supermarket, and self-reported and objectively-assessed fruit and vegetable consumption. Accessibility was assessed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) measured distance and multiple versions of the modified Retail Food Environment Index (mRFEI), including a localized road network buffer version. Frequency of shopping was assessed using self-report. The National Cancer Institute Fruit and Vegetable screener was used to calculate daily servings of fruits and vegetables. Skin carotenoids were …