Digital Commons Network^™

Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals — often poor people and people of color — to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods. Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts …

Latino Stats: American Hispanics By The Numbers, Leticia Camacho

Faculty Publications

Today, 53 million Latinos live in the US, and Latino Stats provides an informative, positive portrait of this fast-growing population group. T he book, written by Malavé and Giordani, a Hispanic American mother and daughter research team, provides statistical data gathered primarily from government, private sector, nonprofit, and media sources. Ten chapters cover the basics of immigration, voting and politics, jobs and the economy, family and community, youth and education, health and environment, criminal justice, entertainment, technology, and sports and identity. Each chapter starts with a quote from a famous Hispanic American followed by a short introduction and a section …

Mechanistic Species Distribution Modelling As A Link Between Physiology And Conservation, Tyler G. Evans, Sarah E. Diamond, Morgan W. Kelly

Faculty Publications

© The Author 2015. Climate change conservation planning relies heavily on correlative species distribution models that estimate future areas of occupancy based on environmental conditions encountered in present-day ranges. The approach benefits from rapid assessment of vulnerability over a large number of organisms, but can have poor predictive power when transposed to novel environments and reveals little in the way of causal mechanisms that define changes in species distribution or abundance. Having conservation planning rely largely on this single approach also increases the risk of policy failure. Mechanistic models that are parameterized with physiological information are expected to be more …

How Global Biodiversity Hotspots May Go Unrecognized: Lessons From The North American Coastal Plain, Reed F. Noss, William J. Platt, Bruce A. Sorrie, Alan S. Weakley, D. Bruce Means, Jennifer Costanza, Robert K. Peet

Faculty Publications

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Biodiversity hotspots are conservation priorities. We identify the North American Coastal Plain (NACP) as a global hotspot based on the classic definition, a region with > 1500 endemic plant species and > 70% habitat loss. This region has been bypassed in prior designations due to misconceptions and myths about its ecology and history. These fallacies include: (1) young age of the NACP, climatic instability over time and submergence during high sea-level stands; (2) climatic and environmental homogeneity; (3) closed forest as the climax vegetation; and (4) fire regimes that are mostly anthropogenic. We show that …

African Cowboys On The Argentine Pampas: Their Disappearance From The Historical Record, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sixteenth-Century Soil Carbon Sequestration Rates Based On Mexican Land-Grant Documents, Andrew Sluyter, Richard Hunter

Faculty Publications

A significant gap in our understanding of global change involves the linkages between historical land-use and land-cover change (LULCC), Holocene terrestrial carbon (C) pool fluxes, and climate change. To address that research problem, this method uses land grants for sheep ranches awarded in early colonial (1521–1620 CE) Mexico to quantify the amount of land converted from cropland to pastureland. Soil is the largest terrestrial C pool, and converting cropland to pastureland significantly increases soil C sequestration rates, thereby reducing atmospheric C. The land grants and associated archival documents contain location-specific information about soils, vegetation, hydrology, and other variables that make …

Dreaming Of Dry Land: Environmental Transformation In Colonial Mexico City, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

African Fire Cultures, Cattle Ranching, And Colonial Landscape Transformations In The Neotropics, Andrew Sluyter, Chris Duvall

Faculty Publications

Fire regimes emerge partly from human activities that reflect cultural-ecological knowledge of the relationships among fire, vegetation, grazing, climate, and other variables, as well as social relations. More knowledge of such “fire cultures,” past and present, therefore remains necessary to better understand the causes and persistent consequences of landscape burning. In the neotropics, people have used fire for centuries to manage livestock pastures. Conventional wisdom has long posited that such practices derived solely from antecedent European and indigenous, Native American fire cultures. Analysis of accounts of rangeland burning from throughout the neotropics during colonial times, however, demonstrates that ranchers incorporated …

Mission Santa Clara In A Changing Urban Environment, Lee M. Panich

Faculty Publications

Since its secularization in the 1830s, Mission Santa Clara de Asís and its associated grounds have seen major transformations. These changes include the gradual abandonment of the mission by its native inhabitants, the Californio and early Anglo-American use of mission structures, as well as the founding and growth of Santa Clara College (now Santa Clara University) and the City of Santa Clara. Through the analysis of historic maps, photographs, and archaeological findings, this paper provides an overview of the far-reaching physical changes that have fundamentally altered the original mission-era landscape, including the mission churches, cemeteries, and neophyte village. Information is …

Lost (But Not Missing) At Work: Organizational Lostness As An Employee Response To Change, Lisa Jones Christensen, Scott C. Hammond

Faculty Publications

This article draws from the psychology of lost person behavior, established from wilderness search and rescue missions, to suggest that employees experience the condition of being lost within organizations. Data from wilderness searches, survivors, and organizational actors suggests that lessons from lost person behaviors apply in organizations. Reactions to being lost in an organization follow predictable patterns and include five specific stages: separation, isolation, deviation, deprivation, and realization. In defining the construct of organizational lostness and differentiating it from stress, coping, and resistance, we suggest an organizing framework to understand employee behaviors that would previously seem idiosyncratic. This article offers …

Coordination And Sustainability Of River Observing Activities In The Arctic, James W. Mcclelland, Suzanne E. Tank, Robert G. M. Spencer, Alexander I. Shiklomanov

Faculty Publications

To understand and respond to changes in the world’s northern regions, we need a coordinated system of long-term Arctic observations. River networks naturally integrate across landscapes and link the terrestrial and ocean domains. Changes in river discharge reflect changes in the terrestrial water balance, whereas changes in water chemistry are linked to changes in biogeochemical processes and water flow paths. Sustained measurements of river water discharge and water chemistry are therefore essential components of an Arctic observing network. As we strive to establish and sustain long-term observations in the Arctic, these two measurements must be coupled. Although river discharge and …

Orbitally Forced Ice Sheet Fluctuations During The Marinoan Snowball Earth Glaciation, Douglas I. Benn, Guillaume Le Hir, Huiming Bao, Yannick Donnadieu, Christophe Dumas, Edward J. Fleming, Michael J. Hambrey, Emily A. Mcmillan, Michael S. Petronis, Gilles Ramstein, Carl T.E. Stevenson, Peter M. Wynn, Ian J. Fairchild

Faculty Publications

Two global glaciations occurred during the Neoproterozoic. Snowball Earth theory posits that these were terminated after millions of years of frigidity when initial warming from rising atmospheric CO2concentrations was amplified by the reduction of ice cover and hence a reduction in planetary albedo. This scenario implies that most of the geological record of ice cover was deposited in a brief period of melt-back. However, deposits in low palaeo-latitudes show evidence of glacial-interglacial cycles. Here we analyse the sedimentology and oxygen and sulphur isotopic signatures of Marinoan Snowball glaciation deposits from Svalbard, in the Norwegian High Arctic. The deposits preserve a …

Orbitally Forced Ice Sheet Fluctuations During The Marinoan Snowball Earth Glaciation, Douglas I. Benn, Guillaume Le Hir, Huiming Bao, Yannick Donnadieu, Christophe Dumas, Edward J. Fleming, Michael J. Hambrey, Emily A. Mcmillan, Michael S. Petronis, Gilles Ramstein, Carl T.E. Stevenson, Peter M. Wynn, Ian J. Fairchild

Faculty Publications

Two global glaciations occurred during the Neoproterozoic. Snowball Earth theory posits that these were terminated after millions of years of frigidity when initial warming from rising atmospheric CO2concentrations was amplified by the reduction of ice cover and hence a reduction in planetary albedo. This scenario implies that most of the geological record of ice cover was deposited in a brief period of melt-back. However, deposits in low palaeo-latitudes show evidence of glacial-interglacial cycles. Here we analyse the sedimentology and oxygen and sulphur isotopic signatures of Marinoan Snowball glaciation deposits from Svalbard, in the Norwegian High Arctic. The deposits preserve a …

Physiological Profiles As Indicators Of Response To Hurricane Disturbance For Three Coastal Wetland Species, Alexandria Lynn Pivovaroff, Cheryl Swift, Loretta L. Battaglia, Brittany Kunz, William J. Platt, Carrie L. Yoder

Faculty Publications

© Coastal Education & Research Foundation 2015. Hurricanes alter light and water availability via canopy damage and storm surge delivery and are expected to intensify with climate change. Plant species respond to environmental changes by making physiological adjustments in situ or through distribution changes. Three years after Hurricane Katrina, we compared functional traits and water relations among three species along the coenocline at Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Fairhope, Alabama, U.S.A. Based on posthurricane distribution changes for these species, we hypothesized that (1) Cladium mariscus, whose distribution expanded slightly, is responsive to increased light availability in the disturbed forest …

Discordance Between Morphological And Molecular Species Boundaries Among Caribbean Species Of The Reef Sponge Callyspongia, Melissa B. Debiasse, Michael E. Hellberg

Faculty Publications

© 2015 The Authors. Sponges are among the most species-rich and ecologically important taxa on coral reefs, yet documenting their diversity is difficult due to the simplicity and plasticity of their morphological characters. Genetic attempts to identify species are hampered by the slow rate of mitochondrial sequence evolution characteristic of sponges and some other basal metazoans. Here we determine species boundaries of the Caribbean coral reef sponge genus Callyspongia using a multilocus, model-based approach. Based on sequence data from one mitochondrial (COI), one ribosomal (28S), and two single-copy nuclear protein-coding genes, we found evolutionarily distinct lineages were not concordant with …

Derivation Of The Freshwater Fish Fauna Of Central America Revisited: Myers's Hypothesis In The Twenty-First Century, Wilfredo A. Matamoros, Caleb D. Mcmahan, Prosanta Chakrabarty, James S. Albert, Jacob F. Schaefer

Faculty Publications

© The Willi Hennig Society 2014. Although attempts to understand Central American freshwater fish provincialism date to the 1960s, early efforts lacked the wealth of distributional data now available. Biogeographic work on Central American freshwater fishes has been largely descriptive and regional, and lacked a broader synthesis. Here we use parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) to elucidate faunistic relationships between major drainages and to delineate areas of endemism. We then perform a Brooks parsimony analysis (BPA) on the resulting areas. The PAE recovered a primary division between four Pacific and six Atlantic slope areas of endemism. In contrast, the BPA …

The Many Chances Of Charles Darwin, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of The 2013 Extreme Flood In Northeast China On Regional Groundwater Depth And Quality, Xihua Wang, Guangxin Zhang, Yi Jun Xu

Faculty Publications

Flooding's impact on shallow groundwater is not well investigated. In this study, we analyzed changes in the depth and quality of a regional shallow aquifer in the 10.9 × 104 km2 Sanjiang Plain, Northeast China, following a large flood in the summer of 2013. Pre-(2008-2012) and post-flood records on groundwater table depth and groundwater chemistry were gathered from 20 wells across the region. Spatial variability of groundwater recharge after the flood was assessed and the changes in groundwater quality in the post-flood period were determined. The study found a considerable increase in the groundwater table after the 2013 summer flood …

Defining An Ecologically Ideal Shallow Groundwater Depth For Regional Sustainable Management: Conceptual Development And Case Study On The Sanjiang Plain, Northeast China, Xihua Wang, Guangxin Zhang, Yi Jun Xu, Xiangjun Shan

Faculty Publications

The depth and fluctuation of shallow groundwater influence water supply to land surface vegetation. Knowledge of an ecologically ideal depth range of shallow groundwater for a vegetation ecosystem can be crucial for sustainability of regional water resource management and ecological conservation. In this study, we developed a conceptual model that identifies an upper and a lower boundary of shallow groundwater for sustaining present vegetation ecosystems, termed ecologically ideal shallow groundwater depth (EISGD). We then applied the conceptual model to the Sanjiang Plain (10.9 × 104 km2) in northeast China in order to gain insights into sustainable shallow groundwater usage in …

The Fellowships At Auschwitz For The Study Of Professional Ethics And The Moral Formation Of Lawyers, Eric L. Muller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Crowdfunded Justice: On The Potencial Benefits And Challenges Of Crowdfunding As A Litigation Financing Tool, Manuel A. Gomez

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Trends And Spatial Variability In Dry Spells Across The South-Central United States, Jill C. Trepanier, Michael J. Roberts, Barry D. Keim

Faculty Publications

Annual average and maximum spells with no precipitation in the southern United States are analyzed. In this study, dry spells are defined as consecutive days with no measurable rainfall. The study area includes 70 weather stations in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Interarrival times between daily precipitation records for each station provide the data for this analysis. All 70 stations were analyzed from 1950 to 2013. Six stations that each have data for more than 100 years were analyzed for the period from 1908 to 2013. Approximately 25% of stations in the region show significant negative trends through …

Beyond Science And Hysteria: Reality And Perceptions Of Environmental Justice Concerns Surrounding Marcellus And Utica Shale Gas Development, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

The debate surrounding the use of hydraulic fracturing (also known as “fracking” or “HF”) to extract natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale deposits is often characterized as a tension between economic development and environmental risks. But frequently missing from this dichotomy is the fact that the concerns of many who oppose HF use extend beyond the purely “environmental,” and also include concerns about issues such as “the natural resource curse” and losing autonomy. These concerns ring of “environmental justice” rather than “environmentalism.” Environmental justice espouses the belief that no group should bear disproportionate environmental consequences resulting from industrial …

The Role Of Social Media In U.S. County Governments: The Strategic Value Of Operational Aimlessness, Barry A. Cumbie, Bandana Kar

Faculty Publications

This study investigates the influence of citizens' socio-economic characteristics on the presence of social media in county-level government. E-government is ostensibly citizen-driven and therefore variation in an area's demographics would likely impact a government's utilization of emerging technology, such as social media. Despite its transformative potential and widespread adoption, e-government development beyond basic stages has been sluggish. Social media is transforming the nature of interaction among individuals and organizations and has the potential to overcome some of the restrictive challenges of e-government. Understanding if, how, and to what end governments are harnessing social media will help make e-government a citizen-driven, …

Law, Rhetoric, Strategy: Russia And Self-Determination Before And After Crimea, Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On March 16, 2014 the residents of Crimea woke up in Ukraine, as they had every morning since the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991. That evening they went to sleep in what claimed to be the independent Republic of Crimea. They lived in that putative country for the next day. On March 18, the leaders of Crimea signed a treaty merging their day-old country into Russia.

Much had taken place before these three days in March 2014. There were arguments about Ukraine associating with the European Union (EU) or joining a Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. …

Rolling Back The Tide: Toward An Individual Mandate For Flood Insurance, Alexander Lemann

Faculty Publications

The National Flood Insurance Program is in flux — and under attack. On March 13, 2014, Congress passed the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, delaying and dismantling many of the reforms it had put in place just twenty months earlier, when it passed the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. Today, flood insurance is both a critical part of the country’s approach to dealing with the rising flood threat posed by climate change and a beleaguered and perpetually broke symbol of governmental ineptitude, leading to calls for its elimination. By providing federally-subsidized flood insurance, critics argue, the National Flood …

The Politics Of Narrative: Law And The Representation Of Mexican Criminality, Deborah Weissman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Tale Of Two Economies: A Comparative Macroeconomic Analysis Of Palo Alto And East Palo Alto, Aditya Kotak, Safwan Siddiqi, Fred Foldvary

Faculty Publications

Cities in the USA have experienced diverse growth rates and levels of prosperity. Some cities flourish in prosperity, while others suffer economic recession. This study examines why cities have had different outcomes. We investigated three elements: 1) What are the factors that play a role in the shaping of a municipal’s economy? 2) What are the implications of these factors? 3) Which policies promote economic growth and prosperity? This essay aims to offer policy directions for cities that are not performing well. The paper applies a comparative analysis of two nearby cities, a flourishing economy contrasted with a troubled economy. …

Citizen‐Science Data Provides New Insight Into Annual And Seasonal Variation In Migration Patterns, Sarah R. Supp, Frank A. La Sorte, Tina A. Cormier, Marisa C.W. Lim, Donald R. Powers

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Multidimensional Quality Metrics (Mqm) Framework: A New Framework For Translation Quality Assessment, Valerie Mariana, Troy L. Cox, Alan Melby

Faculty Publications

Determining translation quality requires a precise measure of the traits being examined. This article evaluates a new framework for translation quality evaluation, Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM), to the task of grading student translations. It demonstrates the viability (i.e. the practicality, validity and reliability) of using the MQM framework by novice raters to judge translations based on the American Translators Association’s translator certification exam grading system. The data gathered for this study were drawn from 29 student translations of a single news story that were rated by nine novice and two expert raters. The study used average time on task, correlations …