Digital Commons Network^™

Half-Century Perspectives On North American Spring Snowline And Snow Cover Associations With The Pacific-North American Teleconnection Pattern, Robert Rohli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Identifying Genome-Wide Immune Gene Variation Underlying Infectious Disease In Wildlife Populations - A Next Generation Sequencing Approach In The Gopher Tortoise, Jean P. Elbers, Mary B. Brown, Sabrina S. Taylor

Faculty Publications

Background: Infectious disease is the single greatest threat to taxa such as amphibians (chytrid fungus), bats (white nose syndrome), Tasmanian devils (devil facial tumor disease), and black-footed ferrets (canine distemper virus, plague). Although understanding the genetic basis to disease susceptibility is important for the long-term persistence of these groups, most research has been limited to major-histocompatibility and Toll-like receptor genes. To better understand the genetic basis of infectious disease susceptibility in a species of conservation concern, we sequenced all known/predicted immune response genes (i.e., the immunomes) in 16 Florida gopher tortoises, Gopherus polyphemus. All tortoises produced antibodies against Mycoplasma agassizii …

Temporal Migration Patterns Between Natal Locations Of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus Colubris) And Their Gulf Coast Stopover Site, Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Andrea J. Contina, Jeffrey F. Kelly, Frank R. Moore

Faculty Publications

Background

Autumn latitudinal migrations generally exhibit one of two different temporal migration patterns: type 1 where southern populations migrate south before northern populations, or type 2 where northern populations overtake southern populations en route. The ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is a species with an expansive breeding range, which allows opportunities to examine variation in the timing of migration. Our objective was to determine a relationship between natal origin of ruby-throated hummingbirds and arrival at a Gulf coast stopover site; and if so, what factors, such as differences in body size across the range as well as the …

Resistance And Resilience Of Social–Ecological Systems To Recurrent Typhoon Disturbance On A Subtropical Island: Taiwan, Chung-Te Chang, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Teng-Chiu Lin

Faculty Publications

Tropical cyclones (TCs) have major effects on ecological and social systems. However, studies integrating the effects of TCs on both social and ecological systems are rare, especially in the northwest Pacific, where the frequency of TCs (locally named typhoons) is the highest in the world. We synthesized studies of effects of recurrent typhoons on social and ecological systems in Taiwan over the last several decades. Many responses to TCs are comparable between social and ecological systems. High forest ecosystem resistance, evident from tree mortality below 2% even following multiple strong typhoons, is comparable with resistance of social systems, including the …

Higher Education In The Era Of Illusions: Neoliberal Narratives, Capitalistic Realities, And The Need For Critical Praxis, Ali H. Hachem

Faculty Publications

The modern American university is in transition, undergoing major changes to its very structure and function. While few of these changes are reflective of the rhetorical language of economic freedom, liberty, choice, and rights used in promoting the neoliberal state project, many others are clear indications of the re-coronation of a capitalistic oligarchy and the reinstatement of its class supremacy through the exploitation of society. While most of the critical literature in higher education attends to the structural macroscopic effects of the new capitalism, it is the argument in this article that more attention should be paid to the subjective …

Higher Education In The Era Of Illusions: Neoliberal Narratives, Capitalistic Realities, And The Need For Critical Praxis, Ali H. Hachem

Faculty Publications

The modern American university is in transition, undergoing major changes to its very structure and function. While few of these changes are reflective of the rhetorical language of economic freedom, liberty, choice, and rights used in promoting the neoliberal state project, many others are clear indications of the re-coronation of a capitalistic oligarchy and the reinstatement of its class supremacy through the exploitation of society. While most of the critical literature in higher education attends to the structural macroscopic effects of the new capitalism, it is the argument in this article that more attention should be paid to the subjective …

The Battle Of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Effort To Save Atlanta, L. Bao Bui

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

National Income Inequality, Society, And Multinational Enterprises, Nathaniel C. Lupton, Guoliang Frank Jiang, Luis F. Escobar

Faculty Publications

This chapter calls for understanding the perspective of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on international differences in income inequality. The authors set a research agenda on how national differences in income inequality influence MNE expansion strategies. Applying a transaction cost framework, both negative and positive economic outcomes of income inequality, from the MNE's perspective, are identified. Low levels of income inequality may deter foreign investment, as MNEs prefer countries where they incur lower levels of transaction costs arising from interactions with various market and non-market actors. However, the positive effect of income inequality on location attractiveness will likely diminish at higher levels …

Teens As Teachers In The Garden: Cultivating A Sustainable Model For Teaching Healthy Living, Virginia Bolshakova, John Gieng, C. Sheena Sidhu, Mary Vollinger, Lorena Gimeno, Jessica Guild

Faculty Publications

School gardens are an ideal space to deliver a healthy living curriculum, such as nutrition and physical activity education, to elementary school youth. However, public schools often lack the resources and support to establish sustainable garden-based programming. We created the Healthy Living Ambassador program, a collaborative after-school garden program in low-income communities that brought together resources from schools, community programs, and University of California Cooperative Extension. This school garden program featured culturally competent teens as teachers to serve as near-peer educators and mentors to elementary school youth. The program development model incorporated lessons from sustainable community-based health program interventions and …

Sustaining Suburbia Through New Urbanism: Toward Growing, Green, And Just Suburbs?, Dan Trudeau

Faculty Publications

This article examines the governance dynamics surrounding the development of sustainable neighborhoods in United States metropolitan contexts characterized as suburban sprawl. Drawing on original case study research of three distinct applications of New Urbanism design principles, the article argues for understanding the relative power of municipal authorities to incorporate social justice imperatives into the practice of sustainable development in suburban contexts. Moreover, key to prioritizing social imperatives is the way in which development processes respond to the “suburban ideal”, which is a view of suburbs as an exclusive bourgeois utopia that constrains the ability to connect so-called sustainable development with …

Emerging Trends In Confirmation And Equivalent Practices, Terri L. Elton, Katherine Douglass, Richard Osmer

Faculty Publications

This article highlights the findings of The Confirmation Project research, a mixed methods project that studied confirmation and equivalent practices in five denominations in the United States. (The denominations were United Methodist, Presbyterian USA, African Methodist Episcopal, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church.) What that discovered was confirmation can provide an opportunity for young people to encounter the gospel anew. It is an important ministry when it strengthens young people’s understanding of faith, deepens their experience with Christian community, and equips them to discern their calling to join in God’s mission in the world. As congregations …

Social Medicine And International Expert Networks In Latin America, 1930–1945, Eric D. Carter

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the international networks that influenced ideas and policy in social medicine in the 1930s and 1940s in Latin America, focusing on institutional networks organised by the League of Nations Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, and the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau. After examining the architecture of these networks, this paper traces their influence on social and health policy in two policy domains: social security and nutrition. Closer scrutiny of a series of international conferences and local media accounts of them reveals that international networks were not just ‘conveyor belts’ for policy ideas from the industrialised countries of the …

Complementary Authority And The One-Way Ratchet: Ecosystem Services Property, Regulation, And Wildlife Conservation, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

Due to the priorities of the Trump Administration, which are not a great match with those of the conservation community, we find ourselves in a period of rollbacks for all kinds of environmental regulation, including the protection of wildlife. When the federal government fails to adequately regulate, we look to other sources of authority to fill that gap. The first and most obvious place to look is to state and local governments. They are our best hope to avoid hemorrhaging vulnerable species during this presidency. Alas, looking at the realities of state wildlife conservation laws, we see the gaps remain. …

Accuracy Of Unmanned Aerial System (Drone) Height Measurements, Daniel Unger, I-Kuai Hung, David Kulhavy, Yanli Zhang, Kai Busch-Peterson

Faculty Publications

Vertical height estimates of earth surface features using an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) are important in natural resource management quantitative assessments. An important research question concerns both the accuracy and precision of vertical height estimates acquired with a UAS and to determine if it is necessary to land a UAS between individual height measurements or if GPS derived height versus barometric pressure derived height while using a DJI Phantom 3 would affect height accuracy and precision. To examine this question, height along a telescopic height pole on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) were estimated at 2, …

Integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems To Measure Linear And Areal Features Into Undergraduate Forestry Education, Reid Viegut, David Kulhavy, Daniel Unger, I-Kuai Hung, Brian Humphreys

Faculty Publications

The use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in undergraduate forestry education continues to expand and develop. Accuracy of data collection is an important aspect of preparation for "society-ready" foresters to meet the complex sustainable environment managing for ecological, social and economic interests. Hands-on use of a DJI Phantom 4 Pro UAS by undergraduates to measure the length and area of 30 linear features and areal features on Earth's surface were estimated. These measurements were compared (measured within the ArcMap 10.5.2 interface) to hyperspectral Pictometry imagery measured on the web-based interface and the Google Earth Pro interface. Each remotely estimated measurement …

Student Led Campus Desire Path Evaluation Using Pictometry® Neighborhood Imagery, David Kulhavy, Daniel Unger, I-Kuai Hung

Faculty Publications

A student led evaluation of desire paths (e.g., paths created by pedestrians on an open landscape) across the Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) campus was performed within a senior level spatial science course in order to create a method for mitigation of desire paths and for campus beautification. Each desire path on campus was identified with the length of each path measured in the field and categorized by the condition of the path in order to assess and determine a necessary solution for each path identified. In addition, Pictometry^® high spatial resolution digital imagery was used to determine …

Where Do Facts Matter? The Digital Paradox In Magazines' Fact-Checking Practices, Susan Currie Sivek, Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin

Faculty Publications

Print magazines are unique among nonfiction media in their dedication of staff and resources to in-depth, word-by-word verification of stories. Over time, this practice has established magazines’ reputation for reliability, helped them retain loyal readers amid a glut of information sources, and protected them from litigation. But during the past decade, websites, mobile platforms, and social media have expanded the types of stories and other content that magazines provide readers. Doing so has shortened the time between the creation and dissemination of content, challenging and in some cases squeezing out fact-checkers’ participation. This study examines the procedures applied to stories …

Modeling The Disappearance Of The Neanderthals Using Concepts Of Population Dynamics And Ecology, Michael F. Roberts, Stephen E. Bricher

Faculty Publications

Current hypotheses regarding the disappearance of Neanderthals (NEA) in Europe fall into two main categories: climate change, and competition. Here we review current research and existing mathematical models that deal with this question, and we propose an approach that incorporates and permits the investigation of the current hypotheses. We have developed a set of differential equations that model population dynamics of anatomically modern humans (AMH) and NEA, their ecological relations to prey species, and their mutual interactions. The model allows investigators to explore each of the two main categories or combinations of both, as well as various forms of competition …

Response To The Letter To The Editor On Turner (2017), R. Eugene Turner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sea-Level Rise Tipping Point Of Delta Survival, R. Eugene Turner, M S. Kearney, R W. Parkinson

Faculty Publications

The estimated rate of global eustatic sea-level rise (RSLR) associated with the formation of 36 of the world's coastal deltas was calculated for the last 22,000 years. These deltas are located in a variety of environmental settings with respect to tidal range, isostasy, and climate. After correcting the original uncalibrated radiocarbon age estimates to calibrated years, 90% of the deltas appear to have formed at an average age of 8109 +/- 122 before present (BP) and a median age of 7967 BP. This age corresponds to a period of significant deceleration in the RSLR to between 5 mm y(-1) and …

Declining Oxygen In The Global Ocean And Coastal Waters, D. Breitburg, L.A. Levin, A. Oschlies, M. Grégoire, F.P. Chavez, D.J. Conley, V. Garçon, D. Gilbert, D. Gutiérrez, K. Isensee, G.S. Jacinto, K.E. Limburg, I. Montes, S.W.A. Naqvi, G.C. Pitcher, N.N. Rabalais, M.R. Roman, K.A. Rose, B.A. Seibel, M. Telszewski, M. Yasuhara, J. Zhang

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Stronger Than The Storm: Disaster Law In A Defiant Age, Alexander Lemann

Faculty Publications

This paper seeks to offer a new way of understanding the impulse to rebuild in the wake of disasters. This is a major problem. One recent study estimated that three feet of sea level rise—expected in consensus estimates by 2100—would displace about 4.2 million Americans, and yet our current legal mechanisms for encouraging retreat from flood-prone areas have not been particularly successful. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a panel of urban planning experts notoriously called for the abandonment of several particularly hard-hit neighborhoods, sparking a political firestorm that put all talk of retreat off the table almost immediately. The …

Byzantine Spirit Of The Undead And Its Legacy In The Sick Man Of Europe, Joan Davison

Faculty Publications

What is the character and extent of the Byzantine political-legal legacy? The contemporary discourse on political institutions uses new language to describe old mechanisms for accommodation and decentralization phenomena: millet systems, internal diasporas, population displacement of enclaves, consociation, asymmetric federalism, and even democracy as a part of modern institutionalized network systems. Employing Michel Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical method, we tap into the undead body of Byzantine political legacy in order to show and extract the legacy of a specific ‘spirit.’ In other words, we identify the existence of a very specific sites which emerges from within a non-Being (in Plato’s …

The "Publicization" Of Private Space, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recently, many urban areas have moved away from the creation of publicly owned open spaces and toward privately owned public open spaces, or POPOS. These POPOS take many forms: concrete plazas that separate a building from the sidewalk; glass-windowed atriums in downtown office buildings; rooftop terraces and gardens; and grass-covered spaces that appear to be traditional parks. This Article considers the nature of POPOS and examines whether they live up to expectations about the role that public space should play and the value it should provide to communities. This is especially important because in embracing POPOS, cities have made a …

Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective On Rural Access To Justice (Forthcoming), Danielle M. Conway

Faculty Publications

Rural America faces an increasingly dire access to justice crisis, which serves to exacerbate the already disproportionate share of social problems afflicting rural areas. One critical aspect of that crisis is the dearth of information and research regarding the extent of the problem and its impacts. This article begins to address that gap by providing surveys of rural access to justice in six geographically, demographically, and economically varied states: California, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to providing insights about the distinct rural challenges confronting each of these states, the legal resources available, and existing policy responses, …

Book Review Of Cattle In The Backlands: Mato Grosso And The Evolution Of Ranching In The Brazilian Tropics, By Robert W. Wilcox., Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Humboldt's Mexico: In The Footsteps Of The Illustrious German Scientific Traveller, By Myron Echenberg, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Challenges Of Elephant Conservation: Insights From Oral Histories Of Colonialism And Landscape In Tsavo, Kenya, Peter Ngugi Kamau, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Conceived Versus Lived Social Spaces And The Transformation Of The Morro Da Providência Favela Of Rio De Janeiro Since 2008, Jamie Worms, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Phylogenomics Of Pike Cichlids (Cichlidae: Crenicichla): The Rapid Ecological Speciation Of An Incipient Species Flock, E. D. Burress, F. Alda, A. Duarte, M. Loureiro, J. W. Armbruster, P. Chakrabarty

Faculty Publications

© 2017 European Society For Evolutionary Biology. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2017 European Society For Evolutionary Biology The rapid rise of phenotypic and ecological diversity in independent lake-dwelling groups of cichlids is emblematic of the East African Great Lakes. In this study, we show that similar ecologically based diversification has occurred in pike cichlids (Crenicichla) throughout the Uruguay River drainage of South America. We collected genomic data from nearly 500 ultraconserved element (UCEs) loci and >260 000 base pairs across 33 species, to obtain a phylogenetic hypothesis for the major species groups and to evaluate the relationships and genetic …