Digital Commons Network^™

Editorial, Kathryn Coffey

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Latino Rhythms In Downtown Los Angeles: A Case Study Of The Social, Physical, And Economic Environment Of "La Broadway", Ulises Antonio Gonzalez

Master's Theses

In an attempt to practice inclusive planning, this research project explores whether Broadway Avenue functions as an ethnic commercial strip and identifies social, physical, and economic components that contribute to the Latino neighborhood/ barrio. Using pilot studies Loukaitou-Sideris (2000), Loukaitou-Sideris (2002), Rojas (1993), Manzumdar et al. (2000), Main (2007), and Fernando (2007) as a foundation, this research uses a single case study in addition to several research methods: 42 random surveys, literature review and analysis, site observations/pictures, and land use survey.

Various scholars write that barrios have unique physical, social, economic, and political attributes. A new aesthetic, art, symbols, …

And They Were There: Reports Of Meetings, Sever Bordeianu

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Spatially-Explicit Simulation Of Urban Growth Through Self-Adaptive Genetic Algorithm And Cellular Automata Modelling, Yan Liu, Yongjiu Feng, Robert Gilmore Pontius

Geography

This paper presents a method to optimise the calibration of parameters and land use transition rules of a cellular automata (CA) urban growth model using a self-adaptive genetic algorithm (SAGA). Optimal calibration is achieved through an algorithm that minimises the difference between the simulated and observed urban growth. The model was applied to simulate land use change from non-urban to urban in South East Queensland's Logan City, Australia, from 1991 to 2001. The performance of the calibrated model was evaluated by comparing the empirical land use change maps from the Landsat imagery to the simulated land use change produced by …

Hydra: Large-Scale Social Identity Linkage Via Heterogeneous Behavior Modeling, Siyuan Liu, Shuhui Wang, Feida Zhu, Jinbo Zhang, Ramayya Krishnan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We study the problem of large-scale social identity linkage across different social media platforms, which is of critical importance to business intelligence by gaining from social data a deeper understanding and more accurate profiling of users. This paper proposes HYDRA, a solution framework which consists of three key steps: (I) modeling heterogeneous behavior by long-term behavior distribution analysis and multi-resolution temporal information matching; (II) constructing structural consistency graph to measure the high-order structure consistency on users' core social structures across different platforms; and (III) learning the mapping function by multi-objective optimization composed of both the supervised learning on pair-wise ID …

The Monastery Of Saint-Michel Du Tréport And The Borderlands Of Northeast Normandy, 1059-1270, Eric Callender

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Michel du Tréport, situated in the county of Eu in Normandy’s northeast corner, from its foundation in 1059 until the death of Louis IX of France in 1270. Utilizing as its main source base the charters in the Cartulaire de L’abbaye de Saint-Michel du Tréport of P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, this project seeks to situate the monks of Saint-Michel du Tréport within their ecclesiastical context, to understand the monastery’s lay patronage, and to examine the secular and ecclesiastical borders of northeast Normandy and the lands surrounding them, particularly the relationship of the Norman …

Predictive Modeling In The Search For Vertebrate Fossils: Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (Geobia) In The Eocene Of Wyoming, Bryan Bommersbach

Masters Theses

The development and testing of predictive models for identifying productive fossil localities represents a promising interdisciplinary endeavor among geographic information scientists, paleoanthropologists, and vertebrate paleontologists. This thesis analyzed high resolution (2m spatial resolution) commercial satellite imagery from the Worldview-2 satellite of five areas of the Great Divide Basin using a GEographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) technique, which segments the image into spectrally homogeneous, multi-pixel image objects. In addition to allowing statistical analysis of the spectral characteristics of the image objects, GEOBIA techniques also let analysts incorporate expert knowledge and contextual information to improve classification accuracy. The spectral characteristics of the …

Water Relationships In The U.S. Southwest: Characterizing Water Management Networks Using Natural Language Processing, John T. Murphy, Jonathan Ozik, Nicholson T. Collier, Mark Altaweel, Richard B. Lammers, Andrew Kliskey, Lilian Alessa, Drew Cason, Paula Williams

Faculty Publications

Natural language processing (NLP) and named entity recognition (NER) techniques are applied to collections of newspaper articles from four cities in the U.S. Southwest. The results are used to generate a network of water management institutions that reflect public perceptions of water management and the structure of water management in these areas. This structure can be highly centralized or fragmented; in the latter case, multiple peer institutions exist that may cooperate or be in conflict. This is reflected in the public discourse of the water consumers in these areas and can, we contend, impact the potential responses of management agencies …

Where Are All The Services?: An Administrators Perspective On Homeless Services In Western Riverside County, Sarah Crane

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The focus of this study was to better understand the state of homeless services in Western Riverside County’s unincorporated areas and cities. Though various services are available to the homeless in these areas, the distance between the appropriate services and some residential parts of the county can be vast. This study sought to obtain an understanding from the administrators of homeless services providers on the deficiencies in services across the county, striving to understand where and what type of increased services are needed.

This study used a qualitative research design. Data were collected from nine homeless service administrators from around …

The Paracel Islands And U.S. Interests And Approaches In The South China Sea, Clarence J. Bouchat (Usaf, Ret.) Lieutenant Colonel

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

View the Executive Summary

The Paracel Islands and South China Sea disputes require better understanding by U.S. policymakers in order to address the region’s challenges. To attain that needed understanding, legal aspects of customary and modern laws are explored in this monograph to analyze the differences between competing maritime and territorial claims, and why and how China and Vietnam stake rival claims or maritime legal rights. Throughout, U.S. policies are examined through U.S. conflicted interests in the region. Recommendations for how the United States should engage these issues, a more appropriate task than trying to solve the disputes outright, are …

The Growing Complexity Of Sino-Indian Ties, Harsh V. Pant Dr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

View the Executive Summary

According to most political observers, the global political architecture is undergoing a transformation with power increasingly shifting from the West to the East. The two most populous nations on the earth, China and India, are on their way to becoming economic powerhouses and are shedding their reticence in asserting their global profiles, making their relationship of still greater importance for the international system. The evolution of Sino-Indian ties over the last few decades and the constraints that continue to inhibit this relationship from achieving its full potential are examined. The implications of this for the United …

Scream If You Can, Heather L. Reyes

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Scream If You Can is an episodic memoir that captures the driving lifestyle of southern California while focusing on significant life events of a twenty-something young woman. The memoir explores themes of family, trauma, and perseverance. Biculturalism and disability are explored alongside the use of education to make a better life for oneself.

Kalamazoo Revisited: Heritage Language Maintenance Among Latvians In North America, Margaret J. Stepe

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the entwined roles of schooling, family support and investment, and community contact in Heritage Language Learning (HLL), Heritage Language Maintenance (HLM) and identity formation among two groups of North American Latvians. One is made up of 49 teenagers at Gaŗezers language camp in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The other comprises 25 parents, other adult Latvian speakers and camp staff members. I explore differences and similarities among them by age, gender and self-stated national identity and language proficiency. Primary data consist of some 70 questionnaires completed by youths and adults and six 30- to 90-minute …

Pre-Ottoman Minarets In Anatolia, Mohamed Ibrahim Radwan

Theses and Dissertations

It is very difficult to find nowadays a masjid in any of the main Islamic cities, such as Cairo, Istanbul or Baghdad, without a minaret or more flanking any of it’s corners. This is a clear indication of how important this element is in Islamic architecture and may be a good reflection of the symbolic and functional role it played. Studying the origins and different forms of the pre-Ottoman minaret can shed some light on one of the most important aspects of the Islamic architecture in Anatolia and the development of the minaret in the Islamic world. The form of …

Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Central Asian Strain (Cas) Lineage Strains In Pakistan Reveal Lower Diversity Of Miru Loci Than Other Strains, Asho Ali, Zahra Hasan, Sana Jafri, Raunaq Inayat, Rumina Hasan

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) Central Asian Strain (CAS) lineage strains are predominant in South Asia. Mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units-variable number of tandem repeats (MIRU-VNTR) typing is an effective way of determining genetic diversity of strains. A maximum of 24 loci-based MIRU-VNTR typing can be used, however, it is important to investigate the relevance of specific MIRU loci for regional strains for more cost-effective MIRU typing. MIRU-VNTR typing was performed on MTB strains from Pakistan. Strains were comprised of CAS (n=113) and non-CAS lineages (n=87) - both multi-drug resistant (MDR) and drug susceptible. Hunter Gaston Discriminatory Index (HGDI) for each MIRU loci …

Mapping Landscape Values: Issues, Challenges And Lessons Learned From Field Work On The Olympic Peninsula, Washington, Diane Besser, Rebecca J. Mclain, Lee Cerveny, Kelly Biedenweg, David Banis

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

In order to inform natural resource policy and land management decisions, landscape values mapping (LVM) is increasingly used to collect data about the meanings that people attach to places and the activities associated with those places. This type of mapping provides geographically referenced data on areas of high density of values or associated with different types of values. This article focuses on issues and challenges that commonly occur in LVM, drawing on lessons learned in the US Forest Service Olympic Peninsula Human Ecology Mapping Project. The discussion covers choosing a spatial scale for collecting data, creating the base map, developing …

Replacing Myths With Facts: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws In The United States, Brian Citro, Jeff Gilson, Sital Kalantry, Kelsey Stricker, University Of Chicago Law School. International Human Rights Clinic, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (U.S.), Advancing New Standards In Reproductive Health (Organization)

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Several countries in the world have sex ratios at birth that are as high or higher than China and India, including countries with predominantly white populations. Nonetheless, immigrant communities in the United States from China and India are consistently accused of harboring a preference for sons. It is supposedly this preference for sons that leads Asian Americans to abort female fetuses. In response, eight states have enacted bans on sex-selective abortion and 21 states and the United States Congress have considered such bans.

Proponents of sex-selective abortion bans claim that the United States is one of the few countries in …

Identifying The Impact Of Universal College Testing On State Academic Testing At The Eleventh Grade, Kristi N. Thompson-Gibbs

Student Work

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the Universal American College Test (ACT) administration as part of a required high school assessment program on eleventh-grade students’ achievement on state level assessments. The study focused on four groups of eleventh-grade students. The first group, eleventh-graders who scored met on the 2010 NeSA Reading assessment and did not participate in the district implementation of the Universal ACT but took the 2010 ACT (n = 103). The second group, eleventh-graders who scored exceed on the 2010 NeSA Reading assessment and did not participate in the district implementation of the …

Practical Writing: The Expository Essay [9th Grade], Morgan K. Kern

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This Understanding by Design unit is written to fulfill the requirement of the elective class Practical Writing and accompanying TEKS objectives. The course is structured to strengthen emerging writer's ability to generate, revise, and refine their writing through the consistent use of writer's notebooks, anchor rubrics, and model texts. A heavy emphasis is placed on student ownership of the revision process and self reflection based on progress demonstrated in a student portfolio. The unit culminates in a personal essay collection, illustration, and author page generated by the student and compiled by the teacher into a class essay collection published as …

Biological Surveys Of Selected Lower Grand River Streams: Ionia, Kent, Muskegon, And Ottawa Counties, Michigan, August-September 2014, Michigan Department Of Environmental Quality Water Resources Division

Faculty and Professional Research

The biologic integrity and physical habitat conditions of the lower Grand River (Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) 04050006) and selected tributaries were surveyed during August and September 2014 by staff of the Surface Water Assessment Section (SWAS), Water Resources Division (WRD). The objectives of this study were to: 1. Evaluate the attainment status of the other indigenous aquatic life and wildlife (OIALW) designated use. 2. Identify and investigate effects of nonpoint sources (NPS) of pollution. 3. Satisfy monitoring requests submitted by internal and external customers.

Prioritizing Non-Marine Invertebrate Taxa For Red Listing, Neil Cumberlidge, Justin Gerlach Phd

Journal Articles

The IUCN Red List of threatened species is biased towards vertebrate animals, a major limitation on its utility for overall biodiversity assessment. There is a need to increase the representation of invertebrates (currently 21 % of species assessed on the List;\1 % of all invertebrates). A prioritisation system of terrestrial and freshwater groups is presented here, categorising taxa by species richness, assessment practicality, value for human land use and bioindication, and potential to act as conservation flagships. 25 major taxonomic groupings were identified as priorities, including the Annelida, Arthropoda, Mollusca and Onycophora. Of these, the high-level taxa that emerge as …

Ways To Refuge: Bosnians In Central New York In Ethnographic Perspective, Fethi Keles

Dissertations - ALL

Ways to Refuge: Bosnians in Central New York in Ethnographic Perspective

This dissertation documents the resettlement experiences of Bosnian Muslims relocated to two urban locales in the north of New York State during and after the Bosnian War in the Balkans. To do so, it relies on ethnographic data gathered mainly through extensive interviews and participant-observation conducted over a period of fourteen months of fieldwork in a variety of places in Central New York.

The dissertation provides individual- and group-level descriptions and analyses of various aspects of the diasporic experiences of the Bosnians encountered in the research, in addition to …

Stratigraphic Framework And Quaternary Paleolimnology Of The Lake Turkana Rift, Kenya, Amy Morrissey

Dissertations - ALL

Lake sediments are some of the best archives of continental climate change, particularly in the tropics. This study is focused on three ~10m sediment cores and high-resolution seismic reflection data from Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Lake Turkana is the world's largest desert lake and the largest lake in the Eastern Branch of the East African Rift System. It is situated at ~2 °N at 360 m elevation and is ~250 km long and ~30 km wide with a mean depth of 35 m. The lake surface receives less than 200 mm yr-1 of rainfall during the twice-annual passing of …

The Slow-Burning Genocide Of Myanmar's Rohingya, Maung Zarni, Alice Cowley

Washington International Law Journal

Since 1978, the Rohingya, a Muslim minority of Western Burma, have been subject to a state-sponsored process of destruction. The Rohingya have deep historical roots in the borderlands of Rakhine State, Myanmar, and were recognized officially both as citizens and as an ethnic group by three successive governments of post-independence Burma. In 1978, General Ne Win’s socialist military dictatorship launched the first large-scale campaign against the Rohingya in Rakhine State with the intent first of expelling them en masse from Western Burma and subsequently legalizing the systematic erasure of Rohingya group identity and legitimizing their physical destruction. This on-going process …

Debate On Bernard Yack’S Book Nationalism And The Moral Psychology Of Community, Jonathan Hearn, Chandran Kukathas, David Miller, Bernard Yack

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Bernard Yack's Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community (2012) was the subject of the eighth in a long‐running series of debates hosted by the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) and the journal Nations and Nationalism in November of 2013. These debates bring together the authors of recent important works in the study of nationalism and ethnicity with appropriate scholars to explore the questions they have provoked. On this occasion Professor Yack was joined by Professor Chandran Kukathas and Professor David Miller.

Crowdsourcing The Policy Cycle, John Prpić, Araz Taeihagh, James Melton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Crowdsourcing is beginning to be used for policymaking. The “wisdom of crowds” [Surowiecki 2005], and crowdsourcing [Brabham 2008], are seen as new avenues that can shape all kinds of policy, from transportation policy [Nash 2009] to urban planning [Seltzer and Mahmoudi 2013], to climate policy. In general, many have high expectations for positive outcomes with crowdsourcing, and based on both anecdotal and empirical evidence, some of these expectations seem justified [Majchrzak and Malhotra 2013]. Yet, to our knowledge, research has yet to emerge that unpacks the different forms of crowdsourcing in light of each stage of the well-established policy cycle. …

A Theory Of Local Common Law, Annie Decker

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Grid Governance: The Role Of A National Network Coordinator, Ashira Pelman Ostrow

Cardozo Law Review

Mounting concerns over the security and reliability of the grid have prompted many to question the grid's state-centered regulatory framework. Today, the federal government regulates interstate transmission, while the states exercise exclusive authority over intrastate distribution, generation, and transmission siting. In an interconnected system, however, each state's energy policies and infrastructure investments inevitably affect operations and costs throughout the entire network. The ongoing physical, financial, and technological integration of the interstate electric power network portends a growing federal role in coordinating intrastate infrastructure policy.

This Article conceptualizes the federal role in grid governance as that of a "National Network Coordinator." …

Comparative Legal Cultural Analyses Of International Economic Law: Insights, Lessons And Approaches, Coline Picker

Indian Journal of International Economic Law

The effective development and operation of the law faces many obstacles. Among the more intractable but hidden barriers are legal cultural disconnects and discontinuities. These occur when opposing legal cultural characteristics from different legal cultures are forced to interact as part of the implementation of the law across two different legal cultures. That conflictual interaction can impede or block the successful implementation and development of the law. While present in domestic legal systems, those conflicts are more likely and the conflicts may be deeper between the many different legal cultures involved in the international legal order. This article aggregates and …

Dangerous Associations, Jodi Melamed

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.