Digital Commons Network^™

Spatial Analysis Of Fatal Automobile Crashes In Nashville, Tn, 2001-2011, Yan Chen

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

With increasing levels of motor vehicle ownership, automobile crashes have become a serious public issue in the U.S. and around the world. Knowing when, where, and how traffic accidents happen is critical in order to ensure road safety and to plan for adequate road infrastructure. There is a rich body of literature pertaining to time-related fatal crashes, most of which focuses on non-spatial factors such as a driver’s visibility at night, drinking and drug use, and road conditions. These studies provide a theoretical basis for understanding the causes of crashes from a non-spatial perspective, and a number of traffic laws …

Sources Of Co2 Controlling The Carbonate Chemistry Of The Logsdon River, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, Bruce Elliott Hatcher

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Logsdon River is a major, base-level stream within the Turnhole Bend Drainage basin of the Mammoth Cave System. The Logsdon River system has provided a unique opportunity to examine the geochemical evolution of a stream flowing through a major karst conduit that can be traversed for 10 km. This study examines CO₂ inputs at the upstream portion of the river, which provide major control for the river’s hydrochemistry. Samples were collected from the upstream portion of Logsdon River at what is referred to as the S-188 sump and also nearby at Crowbar Dome over the course of 44 weeks …

Eastern Deciduous Forest Phenology And Vegetative Vigor Trends From 2000 To 2013, Mammoth Cave National Park, Ky, Sean Taylor Hutchison

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Global climate change is predicted to affect environmental systems at the midlatitudes, but the scope, severity, and outcomes of these impacts are yet to be fully understood. This study focuses on the implications of short-term climate variability for forests in central Kentucky. Using a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) calculated from MODerate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument data, the photosynthetic activity of vegetation at Mammoth Cave National Park (MACA) is tracked from 2000 to 2013. Three methods were employed to examine the changes and climate influences in vegetation over the study period: 1) aggregating the NDVI of the Park by year …

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Linked To Essential Hypertension In Kasigau, Kenya, Julia Carol Freeman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Hypertension, or high blood pressure (BP), is an ever-growing epidemic in the developing world. Understanding the genetics behind essential hypertension (EH), or hypertension with no known cause, is especially important. In this study, three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) known to be linked to an increase in susceptibility to EH were quantified from a cohort of Kenyans living in the Kasigau region. The SNPs are located in three genes that are part of the renin angiotensin system, the primary regulatory pathway in humans controlling BP. They include: AGT (rs699), AGTR1 (rs5186), and HSD11β2 (rs5479). Overall, by using a fluorescent-based RT-PCR technique, …

E.F. Schumacher’S Critique Of Modern Philosophy, Maximilian Lyons

Writing Programs

A freshman major in business marketing from Temecula, California, Max Lyons defends German philosopher E.F. Schumacher’s criticism of modern philosophy and his theory of philosophical mapmaking. Lyons fluently synthesizes Schumacher and modern philosopher David Hume’s work to address the philosophical approaches to climate change, while simultaneously navigating the complicated divergence between modern and post-modern philosophical discourse. The essay was written for Dr. Scott Cameron’s First Year Seminar, The Ethical Implications of Climate Change.

"We Shall Meet Beyond The River": An Analysis Of The Deathscape Of Brownville, Nebraska, Ashley J. Barnett

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Gravestone studies have traditionally focused on the East Coast, particularly the Northeast, because of the long Euro-American settlement history in that region and because of a landmark 1966 study produced by Edwin Dethlefsen and James Deetz which focused on this region. Significantly less attention has been paid to the interior of the continent, particularly the Great Plains. This study analyzes the temporal variations in gravestone iconography and inscriptions to determine major cultural shifts that took place in Brownville, Nebraska, from the town’s founding in 1854 to the present. 1,224 gravestones in Walnut Grove Cemetery were recorded and analyzed for the …

The Effect Of Public Debt On Growth In Multiple Regimes, Andros Kourtellos, Thanasis Stengos, Chih Ming Tan

Economics & Finance Faculty Publications

We employ a structural threshold regression methodology to investigate the heterogeneous effects of debt on growth using public debt as a threshold variable as well as several other plausible variables. Our methodology allows us to address parameter heterogeneity that characterizes cross-country growth data and at the same time account for endogeneity. We find strong evidence for threshold effects based on democracy, which implies that higher public debt results in lower growth for countries in the Low-Democracy regime. Our results are consistent with the presence of parameter heterogeneity in the cross-country growth process due to fundamental determinants of economic growth proposed …

Central Florida Food Culture: The Changing Landscape, Kristin Sweeney

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

The food culture of Central Florida is undergoing a dramatic shift as people begin to reform their diet and embrace a more traditional food culture, emphasizing seasonal, local, and organic ingredients along with the cooking and processing of more of their food at home. This paper examines the efforts of groups and individuals in Central Florida as they work to spread the movement even further among members of the community and provides a framework through which the different educational opportunities and target audiences are classified. For this movement to reach sustainability with a larger audience in the Central Florida area, …

Robert D. Kaplan: The Revenge Of Geography Study Guide, 2013, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Assessment Of The Predictive Reliability Of A Swat Flow Model And The Evaluation Of Runoff Generation And Bmp Effectiveness In A Shale-Gas Impacted Watershed Using A Modeling Approach, Kwasi Asante

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to ensure a harmonious harness of shale-gas resources while ensuring minimal damage to the environment, it is imperative that studies to conduct to inform various aspects of managing the environment. This includes the development of reliable hydrologic models to inform in decisions concerning water and the environment.

The first objective of this study was to evaluate the predictive reliability of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model based on respective methods of LULC data classification and data type spatial resolution. Results showed that the high-resolution data classified with object-oriented image method does not provide any significant advantage …

New Mexico Musician Vol 61 No 2 (Winter 2013)

New Mexico Musician

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Contracts In The Real World: History, Currency, Context, And Other Values, Lawrence A. Cunningham

Washington Law Review

It is gratifying to read that this symposium issue of the Washington Law Review was stimulated by Contracts in the Real World. Thanks to the editors for the opportunity to ruminate on the place of the book’s approach—stressing context through stories—in the tradition of contracts pedagogy. To that end, Part I first pinpoints relevant historical milestones in the field of contracts casebooks. Building on that historical grounding, Part II then highlights the values of currency and context that the stories approach epitomizes. Turning more speculative, Part III considers the value of this approach from the perspective of the purpose …

The Conduit, Volume 13, No. 2, December 2013, Annette Summers Engel

The KWI Conduit

Contents: Welcome to The Conduit -- President’s Corner -- KWI Happenings -- Upcoming 2014 Karst Award Banquet, March 1, 2014 -- Upcoming Conference Announcements -- Karst Award Dinner Announcement -- Meet KWI ‘s New Associates -- News about KWI Officer, Harvey DuChene -- Wilson Scholarship in Karst Science Announcement -- Research Focus: East Tennessee Cave Biodiversity

The True Tragedy Of American Power, Isaiah Wilson Iii

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Protecting The " House Beautiful" : Eco-Consciousness In The Victorian Novel, Margaret Kennedy

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This dissertation discusses how literary writers of the Victorian age render toxicity and toxic behaviors visible in order to encourage reform, as well as offering models of healthy environmental engagement. This literary trend reveals what I call a rising eco-consciousness, the awareness of our relationship to the environment and the exchanges between human and nonhuman. This project emphasizes the novel, which offers a rich ground of inquiry by looking at a set of characters interacting with a space over time; in other words, it focuses on how authors mapped a complete ecology into their fiction, participating in a genre that …

Behavioral Polarization And Partisan Sorting: How Identity Alignment Drives Polarized Politics, Lilliana Hall Mason

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Partisan sorting is capable of driving mass political behavior. As work in social psychology demonstrates, social identities such as party, ideology, religion and race are powerful motivators of bias, activism and anger. Furthermore, when multiple social identities come into alignment, this alignment strengthens the effects of these identities on behavior, and strengthens the cognitive and motivational bases of ingroup bias and negative emotion by increasing the perceived differences between the groups, regardless of the true differences between them. Thus the effect of political identities and the alignment between them can occur independently of the extremity or importance of an individual's …

October To December 2013

All Summaries

No abstract provided.

The Paradoxes Of Restitution, Mark A. Edwards

West Virginia Law Review

Restitution following mass dispossession is often considered both ideal and impossible. Why? This Article identifies two previously unnamed paradoxes that undermine the possibility of restitution: the time-unworthiness paradox and the collective responsibility paradox. After developing these ideas, the Article examines them in the context of a particularly difficult and intractable case of dispossession and restitution. The Article draws upon interviews with restitution claimants whose stories reveal the paradoxes of restitution.

Granite State College, University System Of New Hampshire 2013-2014 Undergraduate Catalog, Granite State College

Granite State College Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Field : An Examination Of Rhetorical Spaces In The Journal Of Sex Research., Deanna Mcgaughey-Summers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I adopt a praxical theory of rhetorical space to identify and examine how members of The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality draw on or invoke rhetorical spatiality in their research published in the Journal of Sex Research. My specific research questions were: (1) What types of rhetorical spaces do sexologists create? and, (2) What rhetorical strategies do sexologists use to create rhetorical spaces? The dissertation is divided into five chapters that present different investigations of the production of rhetorical space in The Journal of Sex Research. Chapter One introduces the theoretical and methodological foundation for …

Piezoelectric Bedload Impact Sensor (Pbis) For Particle Size Distribution., Jeong Won Park 1977-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A multi-channel Piezoelectric Bedload Impact Sensor (PBIS) is developed to estimate mass and particle-size distribution of bedload in low to moderate slope natural streams. The PBIS’s stand-alone design with a sufficiently large data memory facilitates continuous long-term monitoring for low-scale bedload measurements. The design concept of PBIS is based on a hypothesis that particle collision energy on the PBIS plate increases with hydraulic energy and particle size. Thus, particle size can be differentiated by the number of impulses registered in four different threshold channels. The feasibility of PBIS was evaluated by developing a calibration model based on laboratory flume experiments. …

Neighborhoods, Social Capital And Economic Success., Sean M. Payne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between neighborhoods, social capital and economic success. In the model developed in this research, social capital mediates the relationship between neighborhoods and economic success. Social capital represents social networks with their associated norms and resources and increases economic success by facilitating cooperation and by lowering transaction costs. Neighborhoods affect social capital through local interactions, network exclusion, social learning and social identity processes. An understudied part of these relationships is the existence of endogeneity among the key variables. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this study uses structural equation modeling to …

Hope For People Or Hope For Cities? : Hope Vi At Liberty Green., Jelisa Clark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how well the goals of local officials align with the stated goals of HOPE VI in the case of the Liberty Green development in Louisville, KY. Research revealed that there it is not necessarily the goals of decision makers that are in conflict, but the stated goals of HOPE VI themselves stand in conflict with one another. Two major components of HOPE VI are in constant tension-the impact on residents and neighborhood development goals. Evidence from this study suggests that most of the emphasis for the Liberty Green HOPE VI development revolves around neighborhood and community development …

Discovering Domestic Cemeteries : History, Preservation, And Education., Savannah Leigh Darr 1985-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historic cemeteries and graveyards hold the history of the people and community in which they were built. The inscriptions, iconography, and epitaphs on gravemarkers provide insight into the family, religion, social status, and culture of those interred within a specific cemetery or graveyard. They are primary resources for historical research, as some of the information on a gravemarker may not be found anywhere else. Few scholars have recognized the value of small domestic graveyards, which typically have fewer interments and tend to be more isolated in location. For these reasons, domestic graveyards are the most fragile and their preservation is …

Scitech Book News Reviews, Susan Fingerman

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Tollbooths And Newsstands On The Information Superhighway, Brad A. Greenberg

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Countering the perception that speech limitations affecting distribution necessarily reduce access to information, this Essay proffers that copyright expansions actually can increase access and thereby serve important copyright and First Amendment values. In doing so, this discussion contributes to the growing literature and two recent Supreme Court opinions discussing whether copyright law and First Amendment interests can coexist.

Settlement Selection: A Critical Consideration For A New National Spatial Strategy Plan? Applying Population And Daytime Working Population Data To A Centrality Spreadsheet Model To Inform An Evidence Base For Gateway And Hub Selection, Brian Hughes

Masters

Settlement Selection: A Critical Consideration for a New National Spatial Strategy Plan? This Dissertation examines both Central Statistics Office (CSO) published and unpublished demographic evidence from the 2011 and previous censuses, so as to evaluate the 2002 National Spatial Strategy’s (NSS) selection of Gateways and Hub settlements. On its own, population is an incomplete measure of size. However, when used with emerging employment data, a robust methodological time-dynamic centrality model may be constructed based on population and Daytime Working Population (DWP) behaviour and other related and relevant investigations. The Model compares unpublished 2002 data of the NSS Plan with similar …

Rnetcdf: A Package For Reading And Writing Netcdf Datasets, Pavel Michna, Milton Woods

The R Journal

This paper describes the RNetCDF package (version 1.6), an interface for reading and writing files in Unidata NetCDF format, and gives an introduction to the NetCDF file format. NetCDF is a machine independent binary file format which allows storage of different types of array based data, along with short metadata descriptions. The package presented here allows access to the most important functions of the NetCDF C-interface for reading, writing, and modifying NetCDF datasets. In this paper, we present a short overview on the NetCDF file format and show usage examples of the package.

The Legitimacy Of Selected Watershed Organizations In The Midwestern United States, Bruce Martin Hall

Dissertations

Legitimacy in natural resource management refers to the degree to which citizens accept and comply with stated goals and policies. Lack of legitimacy can threaten collaborative-based watershed groups that rely on voluntary compliance to achieve their water quality goals. These groups are locally-based, and sprouted up due to the complexities and political barriers that have prevented better control of non-point, or diffuse, pollution off the landscape and into streams and lakes. One of the most cited requirements for legitimacy in natural resource collaborations is inclusive representation. An exploratory study of several watershed groups in Wisconsin and Illinois uncovered a worrisome …

Full Issue 16(4)

Journal of Public Transportation

No abstract provided.