Digital Commons Network^™

Environmental Sustainability And The Traditional Tibetan Home, Katherine Shrader

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Tibetan Buddhism, the srivatsa, or glorious endless knot, reminds one of the truth of reality. Six right-angled, intertwined strands flow endlessly together, each one connected to the other, each one giving form to the next. So flows reality. Looking past the illusion of isolation, the endless knot illustrates the interdependence and mutual cooperation that runs the world.

No event, no living being has the ability to stand by itself, completely unaffected and unaffecting. All phenomena are intertwined. Every human action, however big or small, impacts the world in some way. The endless knot unveils the truth of reality so …

The Hidden Powers Of Guatemala, Ladb Staff

NotiCen

No abstract provided.

Extractive Reserves: Building Natural Assets In The Brazilian Amazon, Anthony Hall

PERI Working Papers

Amazonia possesses the world's largest remaining area of tropical rainforest (3.5 million sq. km). Despite three decades of settlement and intensive development, the forest is still relatively intact compared with similar areas elsewhere. The region is an increasingly important source of natural assets for both regional and national economic growth, and provides livelihood support to a population of several million. In addition, the Amazon supplies key environmental services in terms of the conservation of biological diversity, climate regulation, and watershed management, as well as sequestering an estimated ten percent of global carbon emissions.

Locating The Transnational In Cambodia’S Dhammayātrā, Kathryn Poethig

SSGS Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Aid, Conditionality, And War Economies, James K. Boyce

Economics Department Working Paper Series

When natural resource revenues provide an important motive and/or means for armed conflict, the transition from war peace faces three challenges: (i) ensuring that the benefits and costs of natural resource exploitation are distributed so as to ease rather than exacerbate social tensions; (ii) channeling revenues to peaceful and productive purposes; and (iii) promoting accountability and transparency in natural resource management. Aid conditionality can help to address these challenges provided that three prerequisites are met: (i) there are domestic parties with sufficient authority and legitimacy to strike and implement aid-for-peace bargains; (ii) donor governments and agencies make peace their top …

Web-Based Intelligent Multimedia Tutoring For High Stakes Achievement Tests, Ivon Arroyo

Computer Science Department Faculty Publication Series

We describe Wayang Outpost, a web-based ITS for the Math section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). It has several distinctive features: help with multimedia animations and sound, problems embedded in narrative and fantasy contexts, alternative teaching strategies for students of different mental rotation abilities and memory retrieval speeds. Our work on adding intelligence for adaptivity is described. Evaluations prove that students learn with the tutor, but learning depends on the interaction of teaching strategies and cognitive abilities. A new adaptive tutor is being built based on evaluation results; surveys results and students’ log files analyses.

Natural And Cultural Assets And Participatory Forest Management In West Africa, Kojo Sebastian Amanor

PERI Working Papers

This chapter explores the ways in which concepts of 'community' and 'environmental crisis' are constructed and implemented in contemporary forest policy in West Africa and the implications of these policies for the relationships among people, their production, and the environment. It argues that many West African communities have interacted with the environment in ways that have enhanced the natural resource base. A forestry strategy rooted in a conception of building natural assets – rather than in protecting a threatened and ostensibly pristine nature from human intervention, as characterizes much environmental thinking – can meet the objectives of reducing poverty and …