Digital Commons Network^™

Land Surface Temperature Variability Across India: A Remote Sensing Satellite Perspective, Satya Prakash, Hamidreza Norouzi

Publications and Research

Land surface temperature (LST) plays a key role in the surface energy budget computation and land surface process studies. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors onboard the Aqua and Terra satellites provide comprehensive global LST estimates at a fine spatial resolution. The MODIS products were recently upgraded to Collection 6, and shown to be more accurate than its predecessor Collection 5 products. In this study, LST and its variability have been examined across India from Collection 6 of the Aqua MODIS data at 0.05° spatial resolution for the period of 2003 to 2017. All-India mean LST characteristics show distinctive …

Supporting The Changing Practices Of Teaching In Business At Queens College, City University Of New York, James Tasato Mellone, Edward F. Wall Iii, Qiong Xu

Publications and Research

This investigation sheds light on the teaching practices of Queens College (QC) faculty in Business. It identifies the Business faculty’s teaching support needs in order to develop ideas for improving Library services to them. This report is the result of research conducted under the guidance of Ithaka S+R, and in accordance with Office of Regulatory Compliance procedures at QC. Using a grounded theory approach to qualitative research, the investigators conducted in-person audio-recorded semi-structured interviews of seven full-time QC faculty who teach Business courses. Evidence derived from the transcribed interviews informed analysis of the current state of QC’s Business teaching experience, …

Beyond Europeanization: The Politics Of Scale And Positionality In Lithuania’S Alternative Food Networks, Renata Blumberg, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

This article brings geographical insights to understanding the Europeanization of agri-food politics in new European Union member states. Most literature on agri-food policy and law in the European Union has conceptualized policy making and implementation as an institutional process involving multiple levels of governance. In this perspective, Europeanization is understood as a process through which stakeholders formulate, negotiate, and implement legal principles and procedures across various institutions at different levels of governance. By employing the conceptual tools developed in geographical research, we contribute a spatial and historical dimension to these studies. Our analysis shows how the politics of scale and …

Rasp 4: Ancestral State Reconstruction Tool For Multiple Genes And Characters, Yan Yu, Christopher Blair, Xingjin He

Publications and Research

With the continual progress of sequencing techniques, genome-scale data are increasingly used in phylogenetic studies. With more data from throughout the genome, the relationship between genes and different kinds of characters is receiving more attention. Here, we present version 4 of RASP, a software to reconstruct ancestral states through phylogenetic trees. RASP can apply generalized statistical ancestral reconstruction methods to phylogenies, explore the phylogenetic signal of characters to particular trees, calculate distances between trees, and cluster trees into groups. RASP 4 has an improved graphic user interface and is freely available from http://mnh.scu.edu.cn/soft/blog/RASP (program) and https://github.com/sculab/RASP (source code).

The Concurrent Decline Of Soil Lead And Children’S Blood Lead In New Orleans, Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Mark A. S. Laidlow, Kenneth J. Berry, Paul W. Mielke Jr., Sara Perl Egendorf

Publications and Research

Lead (Pb) is extremely toxic and a major cause of chronic diseases worldwide. Pb is associated with health disparities, particularly within low-income populations. In biological systems, Pb mimics calcium and, among other effects, interrupts cell signaling. Furthermore, Pb exposure results in epigenetic changes that affect multigenerational gene expression. Exposure to Pb has decreased through primary prevention, including removal of Pb solder from canned food, regulating lead-based paint, and especially eliminating Pb additives in gasoline. While researchers observe a continuous decline in children’s blood lead (BPb), reservoirs of exposure persist in topsoil, which stores the legacy dust from leaded gasoline and …

Spatial Upscaling Of Forest Response To Drought, Wei Fang, Peipei Xu, Tao Zhao, Xiang Zhao, Hui Luo, George Hendrey, Chuixiang Yi

Publications and Research

We have integrated the observational capability of satellite remote sensing with plot-scale tree ring data to up-scale the evaluation of forest responses to drought. Satellite data, such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), can provide a spatially continuous measure with limited temporal coverage, while tree Ring Width Index (RWI) provides accurate assessment with much longer time series local scales. Here, we explored the relationship between RWI and NDVI of three dominant species in the Southwestern United States (SWUS), and predicted RWI spatial distribution from 2001 to 2017 based on MODIS 1-km resolution NDVI data with stringent quality control. We detected …

The Housing Crisis And The Rise Of The Real Estate State, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

This article — an excerpt from my book, Capital City, with elaborations on a number of key points — argues that the housing crises endemic to contemporary capitalism must be understood as a result of the concentration of global capital into real estate and the the re-orientation of state planning capacities around the demands of the real estate industry. The first half of the article explains the dimensions of the crisis in the US and the rise of "the real estate state." The second half explores policy alternatives to contemporary urban neoliberalism and the kinds of movements necessary to …

Temporal Changes In Abundance–Occupancy Relationships Over 40 Years, Lisa L. Manne, Richard R. Veit

Publications and Research

1. Abundance–occupancy (A–O) relationships are widely documented for many organismal groups and regions, and have been used to gain an understanding of regional population and community trends. Monitoring changes in abundance and occupancy over time may be what is required to document changes in conservation status and needs for some species, communities, or areas.
2. We hypothesize that if there is a higher proportion of declining species in one group of species compared with another (e.g., migratory species vs. permanent residents), then a consequence of that difference will be vastly different abundance–occupancy relationships. If this difference persists through time, then the resulting …

Trends In Drought Over The Northeast United States, Nir Y. Krakauer, Tarendra Lakhankar, Damien Hudson

Publications and Research

The Northeast United States is a generally wet region that has had substantial increases in mean precipitation over the past decades, but also experiences damaging droughts. We evaluated drought frequency, intensity, and duration trends in the region over the period 1901–2015. We used a dataset of Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), a measure of water balance based on meteorology that is computed at multiple timescales. It was found that the frequency of droughts decreased over this period, but their average intensity and duration did not show consistent changes. There was an increase in mean SPEI, indicating mostly wetter conditions, but …

Harlem And Abroad: Notes To An International 'Renaissance', Joshua I. Cohen

Publications and Research

Like other intractable figures of the Harlem Renaissance, the movement’s visual artists sometimes exceeded their expected parameters, and thus their anticipated representativeness of a locality. Their images, in other words, did not automatically disclose Harlem-bound or even US-bound concerns. Now familiar through continual reproduction in exhibition catalogues, scholarly monographs and literary compendia, certain artworks from the period – such as Archibald J. Motley’s Blues (1929; Figure 1) and Aaron Douglas’s Congo (c. 1928; Figure 2) – subverted any definition of the Harlem Renaissance that would hinge on a narrowly delimited urban geography or national imaginary. Motley, who painted ‘Blues’ during …

Examination Of Human Health Impacts Due To Adverse Climate Events Through The Use Of Vulnerability Mapping: A Scoping Review, Michael T. Schmeltz, Peter J. Marcotullio

Publications and Research

Government officials, health professionals, and other decision makers are tasked with characterizing vulnerability and understanding how populations experience risks associated with exposure to climate-related hazards. Spatial analyses of vulnerable locations have given rise to climate change vulnerability mapping. While not a new concept, the spatial analyses of specific health outcomes remain limited. This review explores different methodologies and data that are used to assess vulnerability and map population health impacts to climate hazards. The review retrieved scholarly articles and governmental reports concerning vulnerability mapping of human health to the impacts of climate change in the United States, published in the …

Phylogenetic Trees And Networks Can Serve As Powerful And Complementary Approaches For Analysis Of Genomic Data, Christopher Blair, Cécile Ané

Publications and Research

Genomic data have had a profound impact on nearly every biological discipline. In systematics and phylogenetics, the thousands of loci that are now being sequenced can be analyzed under the multispecies coalescent model (MSC) to explicitly account for gene tree discordance due to incomplete lineage sorting (ILS). However, the MSC assumes no gene flow post divergence, calling for additional methods that can accommodate this limitation. Explicit phylogenetic network methods have emerged, which can simultaneously account for ILS and gene flow by representing evolutionary history as a directed acyclic graph. In this point-of-view we highlight some of the strengths and limitations …

Evaluation Of The Uncertainty In Satellite-Based Crop State Variable Retrievals Due To Site And Growth Stage Specific Factors And Their Potential In Coupling With Crop Growth Models, Nathaniel Levitan, Yanghui Kang, Mutlu Özdogan, Vincenzo Magliulo, Paulo Castillo, Fred Moshary, Barry Gross

Publications and Research

Coupling crop growth models and remote sensing provides the potential to improve our understanding of the genotype x environment x management (G X E X M) variability of crop growth on a global scale. Unfortunately, the uncertainty in the relationship between the satellite measurements and the crop state variables across different sites and growth stages makes it diffcult to perform the coupling. In this study, we evaluate the effects of this uncertainty with MODIS data at the Mead, Nebraska Ameriflux sites (US-Ne1, US-Ne2, and US-Ne3) and accurate, collocated Hybrid-Maize (HM) simulations of leaf area index (LAI) and canopy light use …

The Public Library As Resistive Space In The Neoliberal City, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

With reduced hours, decaying infrastructure, and precariously positioned staff, local public libraries provide much needed services in cities devastated by inequality and slashed safety nets. In this article, I draw on ethnographic research of a small public library in a diverse, mostly working class neighborhood in Queens, New York. I show that in addition to providing an alternative to the capitalist market by distributing resources according to people’s needs, the library serves as a moral underground space, where middle class people bend rules to help struggling city residents. Although the library occasionally replicates hegemonic ideologies about immigrant assimilation, it provides …

Affect & Race/(Blackness), Colin Patrick Ashley, Michelle Billies

Publications and Research

We question the question of affect and race as one that has already built itself upon blackness and anti-blackness, such that the question a priori for an affect theory seeking to address race, we argue, is that of black ontology. We first examine various works in affect theory that theorize race through new mechanisms of discourse, works that theorize interpersonal and emotive affects, and works that have contributed to a biopolitical understanding of race, affect, and assemblage. Delving deeper into a Deleuzian legacy of affect as capacity we assert that the theoretical works of afro-pessimism and black optimism (as black …

An Urban Flash Flood Alert Tool For Megacities—Application For Manhattan, New York City, Usa, Rafea Hashim Al-Suhili, Cheila Cullen, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Urban flooding is a frequent problem affecting cities all over the world. The problem is more significant now that the climate is changing and urbanization trends are increasing. Various, physical hydrological models such as the Environmental Protection Agency Storm Water Management Model (EPA SWMM), MIKE URBAN-II and others, have been developed to simulate flooding events in cities. However, they require high accuracy mapping and a simulation of the underground storm drainage system. Sadly, this capability is usually not available for older or larger so-called megacities. Other hydrological model types are classified in the semi-physical category, like Cellular Automata (CA), require …

“A” For Effort: Rewarding Effortful Retrieval Attempts Improves Learning From General Knowledge Errors In Women, Damon Abraham, Kateri Mcrae, Jennifer A. Mangels

Publications and Research

Previous research has shown that the prospect of attaining a reward can promote task engagement, up-regulate attention toward reward-relevant information, and facilitate enhanced encoding of new information into declarative memory. However, past research on reward-based enhancement of declarative memory has focused primarily on paradigms in which rewards are contingent upon accurate responses. Yet, findings from test-enhanced learning show that making errors can also be useful for learning if those errors represent effortful retrieval attempts and are followed by corrective feedback. Here, we used a challenging general knowledge task to examine the effects of explicitly rewarding retrieval effort, defined as a …

Researching At The Community-University Borderlands: Using Public Science To Study Policing In The South Bronx, Brett G. Stoudt, María Elena Torre, Paul Bartley, Evan Bissel, Fawn Bracy, Hillary Caldwell, Lauren Dewey, Anthony Downs, Cory Greene, Jan Haldipur, Scott Lizama, Prakriti Hassan, Einat Manoff, Nadine Sheppard, Jacqueline Yates

Publications and Research

This article is a case study of the Morris Justice Project (MJP), a participatory action research (PAR) study in a South Bronx neighborhood of New York City (NYC) designed to understand residents' experiences with and attitudes towards the New York Police Department (NYPD). An illustration of public science, the research was conducted in solidarity with an emerging police reform movement and in response to an ongoing and particularly aggressive set of policing policies that most heavily impacts poor communities and communities of color. The case study describes a set of ongoing participatory, research-action, "sidewalk science" strategies, developed in 42 square …

Development Of Digital Bathymetry Maps For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo Using Sonar And Remote Sensing Techniques, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian, Fred Moshary, Jorge Gonzalez

Publications and Research

This article presents an improved algorithm for optimization and development of a digital bathymetric model (DBM) for Lake Azuei (LA) (Haiti) and Lake Enriquillo (LE) (Dominican Republic) using the ANUDEM method. Both sonar data and contour lines of the lakes’ layout extracted using Landsat imagery were compiled for bathymetry development. We show that the performance of the ANUDEM method was strongly dependent on the density and irregularity of the spatial distribution of the data. Changing the resolution of the output grids and deriving auxiliary topographically corrected contours improved the ANUDEM performance and minimized the systematic errors of the method. Statistical …

The Criminogenic And Psychological Effects Of Police Stops On Adolescent Black And Latino Boys, Juan Del Toro, Tracey Lloyd, Kim S. Buchanan, Summer Joi Robins, Lucy Zhang Bencharit, Meredith Gamson Smiedt, Kavita S. Reddy, Enrique Rodriguez Pouget, Erin M. Kerrison, Philip Atiba Goff

Publications and Research

Proactive policing, the strategic targeting of people or places to prevent crimes,is a well-studied tactic that is ubiquitous in modern law enforcement. A 2017 National Academies of Sciences report reviewed existing literature, entrenched in deterrence theory, and found evidence that proactive policing strategies can reduce crime. The existing literature, however, does not explore what the short and long-term effects of police contact are for young people who are subjected to high rates of contact with law enforcement as a result of proactive policing. Using four waves of longitudinal survey data from a sample of predominantly black and Latino boys in …

Racism In Modern Information And Communication Technologies, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

These are the remarks given at a keynote address at the United Nations, before the 10th session of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Geneva, Switzerland.

The Living Archive In The Anthropocene, Nora Almeida, Jen Hoyer

Publications and Research

This paper presents the concept of the living archive as a system which reflects how social behavior and cultural production are part of the Anthropocene. The authors explore how dominant narratives of both the Anthropocene and the archive work to consolidate power and maintain cultural and disciplinary divisions. The authors refute conceptions of the Anthropocene as a purely biophysical phenomenon that is alienated from cultural practice and of the archive as a comprehensive and nostalgic space. They then introduce the living archive as an alternative representational, creative, and reactive space and illustrate how the living archive can intervene in ecological …

Direct Action Housing: Exploring The History Of Tenant-Led Housing Struggles—On Film—In Nyc, Arielle Lawson

Publications and Research

This independent research project dives into the history of tenant-led housing struggles in New York City with a particular focus on using film archives and documentaries to highlight key moments and case studies when housing activism opened up new political imaginations, intersections and possibilities in the city.

As outlined in the Direct Action Housing zine, I curated and hosted four public events in the spring of 2019 on different aspects of housing struggles documented through archival film records. This series of housing history films was a starting point and catalyst to think about the role of and for the home …

What Is Critical About Critical Librarianship?, Emily Drabinski

Publications and Research

Library work structures intellectual worlds as library workers collect, organize, make accessible, and preserve materials for use. This work is not neutral. Libraries, like all institutions, are produced in and through systems marked by racism, patriarchy, and capitalist modes of production. Critical librarianship offers a framework for thinking about our work that asks how library structures came to be and what ideologies underpin them. Viewing librarianship through this frame allows us to imagine new and better worlds on our way to making them.

A Multi-Criteria Gis Model For Suitability Analysis Of Locations Of Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Units: Case Study In Sulaimania, Iraq, Ako Rashed Hama, Rafea Hashim Al-Suhili, Zeren Jamal Ghafour

Publications and Research

Sulaimania is a City located in Kurdistan region in the north of Iraq. The city is facing a lack of water, and it will reach a very critical condition shortly. One of the potential solutions is to reuse the treated wastewater for non-direct human uses such as irrigation, washing, firefighting, groundwater recharging, and others. There is no sewage treatment plant in the city. The wastewater flows into a stream through some sewer outlets, and that causes big environmental issues. Decentralized wastewater treatment units (DTUs) are suggested to solve the issue. The treated wastewater will be used for the irrigation of …

Infrastructures Of Taste: Rethinking Local Food Histories In Lithuania, Renata Blumberg, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

Lithuania hosts a diversity of places that offer consumers a taste of local food, which appear to mirror the recent popularity of local and alternative food initiatives globally. In this paper we show that the proliferation of local foods in the region is not a novel phenomenon, nor is it solely a manifestation of taste preferences or identities associated with food. Drawing on the growing scholarly work on the role of infrastructures in mediating social, economic and political relations, we conceptualize the taste for local food as embedded in broader networks and reproduced through material facilities. To advance this argument, …

Islam And Buddhism: The Arabian Prequel?, Anna Akasoy

Publications and Research

Conventionally, the first Muslim-Buddhist encounters are thought to have taken place in the context of the Arab-Muslim expansions into eastern Iran in the mid-seventh century, the conquest of Sind in 711 and the rise of the Islamic empire. However, several theories promoted in academic and popular circles claim that Buddhists or other Indians were present in western Arabia at the eve of Islam and thus shaped the religious environment in which Muhammad’s movement emerged. This article offers a critical survey of the most prominent arguments adduced to support this view and discusses the underlying attitudes to the Islamic tradition, understood …

High-Resolution Record Reveals Climate-Driven Environmental And Sedimentary Changes In An Active Rift, Lisa C. Mcneill, Donna J. Shillington, Gareth D. O. Carter, Jeremy D. Everest, Robert L. Gawthorpe, Clint Miller, Marcie P. Phillips, Richard E. Ll. Collier, Aleksandra Cvetkoska, Gino De Gelder, Paula Diz, Mai-Linh Doan, Mary Ford, Maria Geraga, Jack Gillespie, Romain Hemelsdael, Emilio Herrero-Bervera, Mohammad Ismaiel, Liliane Janikian, Katerina Kouli, Erwan Le Ber, Shunli Li, Marco Maffione, Carol Mahoney, Malka L. Machlus, Georgios Michas, Casey W. Nixon, Sabire Asli Oflaz, Abah P. Omale, Kostas Panagiotopoulos, Sofia Pechlivanidou, Simone Sauer, Joana Seguin, Spyros Sergiou, Natalia V. Zakharova, Sophie Green

Publications and Research

Young rifts are shaped by combined tectonic and surface processes and climate, yet few records exist to evaluate the interplay of these processes over an extended period of early rift-basin development. Here, we present the longest and highest resolution record of sediment flux and paleoenvinronmental changes when a young rift connects to the global concerns. New results from International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 381 in the Corinth Rift shows 10s-100s of kyr cyclic variations in basin paleoenvironment as eustatic sea level fluctuated with respect to sills bounding this semi-isolated basin, and reveal substantial corresponding changes in the volume and …

Cultural Transmission Modes Of Music Sampling Traditions Remain Stable Despite Delocalization In The Digital Age, Mason Youngblood

Publications and Research

Music sampling is a common practice among hip-hop and electronic producers that has played a critical role in the development of particular subgenres. Artists preferentially sample drum breaks, and previous studies have suggested that these may be culturally transmitted. With the advent of digital sampling technologies and social media the modes of cultural transmission may have shifted, and music communities may have become decoupled from geography. The aim of the current study was to determine whether drum breaks are culturally transmitted through musical collaboration networks, and to identify the factors driving the evolution of these networks. Using network-based diffusion analysis …

“In The Beginning Was Body Language” Clowning And Krump As Spiritual Healing And Resistance, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In the neighborhood of HollyWatts in Los Angeles, dance allows a shift from existing as bodies presented as sites of threat and extinction to sources of spiritual empowerment. Clowning and Krump dancers—their subjectivity and their dancing bodies—negotiate survival from trauma and socioeconomic marginalization. I argue that the dancers’ performances act as embodied narratives of “re-membering in the flesh.” The performance acts as a spiritual retrieval and re-integration of traumatic memories and afflictions into memory through the body. Choreography and quotes from dancers support the claim that Krump and Clowning is “re-membering in the flesh” that enacts self-worth, self-defined sexuality, and …