Digital Commons Network^™

Environmental And Community Health In South San Diego County: A Behavior Analysis Of Recreational Ocean Users Along Imperial Beach, California, Trista Brophy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Garbage & sewage runoff into the Pacific Ocean at the shoreline along the U.S./Mexico Border region poses serious health and environmental threats. The purpose of this study was to analyze the current beach users’ behavioral factors that may be linked to illness prevalence from Coronado Island to the U.S./Mexico border at Imperial Beach in San Diego County. It is a continuation of a study completed by Wildcoast and Imperial Beach Clinic in 2011. The study tried to answer the following two major questions: How have the number of illnesses reported by users along South San Diego County beaches changed in …

The Efficacy Of Heritage Interpretation At The Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches In Ethiopia: Exploring The Need For Integrating Ict-Mediation, Rayviscic Mutinda Ndivo, Lorenzo Cantoni

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The inscription of a property in the World Heritage List serves as a recognition of its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). Such recognition gives visitors the expectation that visiting the site would be a unique experience that would fulfil their visitation goals. Need therefore exists to ensure quality heritage interpretation at the particular World Heritage site. This is both beneficial to ensuring adequate presentation of the site’s OUV and visitor satisfaction. This paper seeks to investigate the level of visitor satisfaction with heritage interpretation at the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela one of the most visited attractions in Ethiopia. The study is …

The Role Of Tourists’ Feedback In The Enhancement Of Religious Tourism Destinations, Stefania Cerutti, Elisa Piva

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Over the last few decades, tourism has faced several challenges and opportunities mostly related to the tremendous rise of online social networks and tourist platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, etc.). The revolution brought about by Web 2.0 (or Travel 2.0) has radically changed the behaviour of tourists, who are now able to access information rapidly and to contribute in generating information to share with other users. The advent of the Internet has forced destinations to transform themselves to be more interactive, innovative and efficient as the online consumer is more active, demanding and in control. As a consequence, online reviews …

The Influences Of Drought And Land-Cover Conversion On Inter-Annual Variation Of Npp In The Three-North Shelterbelt Program Zone Of China Based On Modis Data, Dailiang Peng, Chaoyang Wu, Bing Zhang, Alfredo Huete, Xiaoyang Zhang, Rui Sun, Liping Lei, Wenjing Huang, Liangyun Liu, Xinjie Liu, Jun Li, Shezhou Luo, Bin Fang

GSCE Faculty Publications

Terrestrial ecosystems greatly contribute to carbon (C) emission reduction targets through photosynthetic C uptake.Net primary production (NPP) represents the amount of atmospheric C fixed by plants and accumulated as biomass. The Three-North Shelterbelt Program (TNSP) zone accounts for more than 40% of China’s landmass. This zone has been the scene of several large-scale ecological restoration efforts since the late 1990s, and has witnessed significant changes in climate and human activities.Assessing the relative roles of different causal factors on NPP variability in TNSP zone is very important for establishing reasonable local policies to realize the emission reduction targets for central government. …

The Importance Of Music Festivals: An Unanticipated And Underappreciated Path To Identity Formation, Kimberly F. Rudolph

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand and explain the growing popularity of music and art festivals around the world. Music festivals are events consisting of a variety of bands and musical artists performing shows, on numerous stages, over a period of days to a large audience in outside and inside venues. Through field research, participant-observation, personal interviews, and survey research at the 2015 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, this study suggests that they are much more than simple entertainment venues. Because humans desire to belong and music functions in the capacity as a global language, music festivals are …

Can Urban Areas Help Sustain The Preservation Of Open Space? Evidence From Statewide Referenda, Matthew Altonji, Corey Lang, Gavino Puggioni

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Faculty Publications

Statewide referenda for land conservation are likely to entail a disparity between people who vote on the referenda and those who live in proximity to conserved areas, which may lead to a lower probability of passage than a more local referendum. This paper examines trends in voting preferences on statewide land conservation referenda in Rhode Island using precinct-level voting data. We identify two similar referenda in 2004 and 2012 and estimate a first difference spatial regression model that seeks to understand the determinants of changes in support over time. Controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and political ideology, we find that referenda …

A Closer Look Into Remote Work: Examining Resources Within Remote Work Arrangements With Outcomes Of Job Performance And Work-Family Conflict, Kaitlin Kiburz Kiburz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Remote work has become a popular topic within organizations and the popular press. However, academic research has been inconclusive as to whether remote work is related to benefits of increased job performance and lessened work-family conflict. This study examined remote work resources to gain an in-depth understanding of how remote work relates to job performance and work-family conflict. One hundred fifty-one salespeople participated in two time-lagged surveys regarding remote work resources (autonomy, feedback, access to information and interaction with one’s supervisor), outcomes (subjective and objective job performance and work family-conflict) and demographics. Remote work resources were not significantly related to …

Mineralogical Transformations And Soil Development In Shale Across A Latitudinal Climosequence, Ashlee L.D. Dere, Timothy S. White, Richard H. April, Susan L. Brantley

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

To investigate factors controlling soil formation, we established a climosequence as part of the Susquehanna-Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory (SSHCZO) in central Pennsylvania, USA. Sites were located on organic matter-poor, iron-rich Silurian-aged shale in Wales, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Puerto Rico, although this last site is underlain by a younger shale. Across the climosequence, mean annual temperature (MAT) increases from 7 to 24°C and mean annual precipitation (MAP) ranges from 100 to 250 cm. Variations in soil characteristics along the climosequence, including depth, morphology, particle-size distribution, geochemistry, and bulk and clay mineralogy, were characterized to investigate the role of …

Geopolitical Implications Of The Sino-Japanese East China Sea Dispute For The U.S., Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Much analysis on Asian strategic challenges facing the U.S. has justifiably emphasized the South China Sea (SCS). This has also been reflected in 2016 presidential campaign debate on the SCS as an emerging area of U.S. foreign and national security policy concern. The East China Sea (ECS) is at least as important for the strategic interests of the U.S. and its allies given the tension between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, potential energy resources in this body of water, increasing defense spending by adjacent geographic powers, the area’s importance as a maritime international trade route, and the possibility …

Tracing The Material: Spaces And Objects In British And Irish Modernist Novels, Mary Allison Wise

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tracing the Material considers how James Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s The Years, and Samuel Beckett’s Murphy represent material spaces and objects as a way of engaging with the fraught histories of England and Ireland. I argue that these three writers use spaces and objects to think through and critique nineteenth and early twentieth-century conflicts and transitions, particularly in the areas of empire, nationalism, gender, and family. Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, in the decline of British ascendency, the rise of the Irish Free State, and between the World Wars, these writers seek to interpret their history through …

Out From Under The Cosh: The Impact Of Football On English Working Class Identity Through Cartoons, 1900-1925, Matthew Karp

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

No abstract provided.

Spatial Regression Analysis Of Refugee Settlement: Greeley, Colorado, 2012-2013, Kyle Yeager

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

No abstract provided.

Burden Of Disease Resulting From Lead Exposure At Toxic Waste Sites In Argentina, Mexico And Uruguay, Jack Caravanos, Jonathan Carrelli, Russell Dowling, Brian Pavilonis, Bret Ericson, Richard Fuller

Publications and Research

Background: Though lead contaminated waste sites have been widely researched in many high-income countries, their prevalence and associated health outcomes have not been well documented in low- and middle-income countries.

Methods: Using the well-established health metric disability-adjusted life year (DALY) and an exposure assessment method developed by Chatham-Stephens et al., we estimated the burden of disease resulting from exposure to lead at toxic waste sites in three Latin American countries in 2012: Argentina, Mexico and Uruguay. Toxic waste sites identified through Pure Earth’s Toxic Sites Identification Program (TSIP) were screened for lead in both biological and environmental sample media. Estimates …

Western News, June 23, 2016, Western Michigan University

Western News (1972-2018)

Story highlights: State funds to help aviation programs soar; Notable facilities projects taking place this summer; Researcher earning impressive accolades; On Campus with Stacy Thinnes.

Botanical Therapeutics In The Modern World, Vyacheslav Dushenkov, Brittany L. Graf, Mary Ann Lila

Publications and Research

Plants are the source of a broad spectrum of biologically active phytochemicals. For effective defense against pathogens and abiotic stress, plants have developed complicated chemical strategies with different mechanisms of action. By harnessing these phytochemicals, humans have used plants for medicinal purposes for over 30,000 years, and they remain a valuable source for the development of modern therapeutics. Plant-derived materials are utilized as pharmaceuticals, botanical drugs, dietary supplements (nutraceuticals), functional food ingredients, and cosmeceuticals. The Global Institute for Bioexploration (GIBEX), an international conglomerate of researchers, is involved in multiple botanical therapeutics discovery and development programs.

Snakes In The Nest, Shane Durgee

Theses

This document accompanies my thesis titled, Snakes in the Nest, which was exhibited in the Bevier Gallery for two weeks in April 2016, and consisted of five paintings and one sculpture. In this essay I outline both the artistic influences and theoretical research that shaped the creation of my work. I argue that the construction of my identity has been largely manipulated by a culture of escapist consumerism as well as social conditioning performed by my society to maintain a gender binary. The making of my thesis exhibition sparked an investigation into my ongoing involvement with art. This called for …

Sense Of Place In Urban Transformation, Gentrification And Preventing Displacement: A Case Study Of The Marketview Heights, Aya Alfonso

Theses

This thesis is a case study of the Marketview Heights neighborhood in the city of Rochester, NY, the main target of the City’s Urban Renewal District Plan (2014). Citizens of Marketview provided input for this plan that used participatory strategies in its creation. The citizens of this neighborhood are primarily people of color who experience relatively high rates of poverty. The Marketview Heights Collective Action Project (CAP) is a community-based organization that has organized and empowered the community with initiatives and programs, like the creation of community gardens and participation in planning of policies that affect their community. CAP is …

2016.06.23 - Board Of Trustees Meeting Minutes, Northeastern Illinois University Board Of Trustees

Board of Trustees - 2016

Meeting materials for the NEIU Board of Trustees

Medium Moderates The Message. How Users Adjust Their Communication Trajectories To Different Media In Collaborative Task Solving, K Lisiecka, A Rychwalska, K Samson, K Łucznik, Et Al

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Rapid development of information and communications technologies (ICT) has triggered profound changes in how people manage their social contacts in both informal and professional contexts. ICT mediated communication may seem limited in possibilities compared to face-to-face encounters, but research shows that puzzlingly often it can be just as effective and satisfactory. We posit that ICT users employ specific communication strategies adapted to particular communication channels, which results in a comparable effectiveness of communication. In order to maintain a satisfactory level of conversational intelligibility they calibrate the content of their messages to a given medium's richness and adjust the whole conversation …

The Marine Biogeochemistry Of Trace Metals, Saeed Roshan

Open Access Dissertations

Some of the transition metals play major roles within the biology of the ocean, but occur in the ocean at the “trace” levels of concentration. They, particularly, function in the metabolism and thriving of the marine primary producers which contribute significantly to the global photosynthesis and are the base of the marine food web. Iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), and manganese (Mn) are among the most important trace metals whose oceanic behavior in terms of distribution, cycling, sources, sinks, and similarities to macronutrients such as phosphate (PO4 3-), nitrate (NO3 -), and silicate (SiO4 4-) are studied …

Local Versus Generalized Phenotypes In Two Sympatric Aurelia Species: Understanding Jellyfish Ecology Using Genetics And Morphometrics, Luciano M. Chiaverano, Keith Bayha, William M. Graham

Faculty Publications

For individuals living in environmentally heterogeneous environments, a key component for adaptation and persistence is the extent of phenotypic differentiation in response to local environmental conditions. In order to determine the extent of environmentally induced morphological variation in a natural population distributed along environmental gradients, it is necessary to account for potential genetic differences contributing to morphological differentiation. In this study, we set out to quantify geographic morphological variation in the moon jellyfish Aurelia exposed at the extremes of a latitudinal environmental gradient in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). We used morphological data based on 28 characters, and genetic data …

The Influence Of Floodplain Restoration On Flow And Sediment Dynamics In An Urban River, Sangaralingam Ahilan, Mingfu Guan, Andrew Sleigh, Nigel G. Wright, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

A study of floodplain sedimentation on a recently restored floodplain is presented. This study uses a two-dimensional hydro-morphodynamic model for predicting flow and suspended-sediment dynamics in the downstream of Johnson Creek, the East Lents reach, where the bank of the river has been reconfigured to reconnect to a restored floodplain on a 0.26 km² (26-ha) site. The simulation scenarios include 10-, 50-, 100- and 500-year event-based deposition modelling of flood events and long-term modelling using the 64 historical flood events between 1941 and 2014. Simulation results showed that the restored floodplain significantly attenuates the upstream flood peak by up …

Preservice Teachers Engaged In Professional Learning Community To Explore Critical Literacy, Vanessa Casciola

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As demographics change, our school populations are ever changing. Preservice teachers (PSTs) need to be aware of how to meet the needs of all of their future students. Teacher education programs have been charged with the duty of preparing these PSTs for the diverse school population they will encounter. This qualitative multiple case study focused on the influence of specific work with PSTs in the inquiry process within a learning community to make sense of critical literacy. The following research questions guided this study: (1) How do elementary PSTs engaged in practitioner inquiry make meaning of critical literacy instruction within …

Sustainability At U.S. Urban Water Utilities: A Framework To Assess Key Attributes, Matthew Paul Ries

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban water utilities in the United States face challenges due to a combination of external drivers. These include urbanization and population growth, which are stressing a system of aging infrastructure. Compliance with increasing regulations is also a challenge in a fiscally-constrained economic environment. A changing climate threatens infrastructure and past assumptions for water supply and quality. Urban utilities provide clean water and sanitation services to over 80% of the country’s population and its industrial centers. Therefore, the sustainability of these water utilities are crucial to the country’s and the public’s well-being.

New operating models are emerging for a “utility of …

Saving The Orange: How To Fight Citrus Greening Disease (And It’S Not Through Genetic Engineering), Evan Feely

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Productivity And Diversity In Research And Agriculture: Improving The Ipr Landscape For Food Security, A. Max Jarvie

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

While food security has long been a national or regional burden, the advent of international instruments governing intellectual property rights over conventionally bred plant varieties and genetically modified plants has made the management of food security a global concern. Current intellectual property regimes do not provide clear support for innovations in crop productivity or biodiversity, both of which are implicated in the long term stability of food supply. This Paper examines the intellectual property regimes governing agricultural food stocks with respect to the level of support they provide for three key research programs in the development of crop seeds and …

Litigation Against Fracking Bans And Moratoriums In The United States: Exit, Voice And Loyalty, Christopher J. Hilson

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

A number of U.S. states, counties and municipalities have responded to the public health and environmental concerns surrounding fracking by imposing bans or moratoriums on unconventional oil and gas drilling. These restrictions have, in recent years, given rise to litigation challenges by oil and gas companies and by property owners deprived of potential revenues. The current Article begins by examining precisely who has litigated. Have large companies dominated or is it mostly smaller independents? Is there a difference in litigation rates between private and public companies? The Article then considers how Hirschman’s ideas of exit, voice and loyalty might apply …

Contest Or Congruence: The Effects Of Work/School Conflict And Facilitation On Working College Students, Madeline Mareen Miscenich

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to find out more about working students perspectives on work/school conflict and facilitation. The subjects that participated in the study included students workers of Rowan University employed through the Federal Work Study (FWS) Program in the area of Gloucester County, New Jersey. Data from the subjects were gathered using a quantitative survey design, with items presented in a Likert scale format. The data were analyzed using SPSS Software, and frequency of response, measures of central tendency, and Pearson correlations were examined in order to determine student attitudes regarding work/school conflict and facilitation. Subjects were …

Temporal Effects Of Distressed Housing On Early Childhood Risk Factors And Kindergarten Readiness, Claudia J. Coulton, Francisca García Cobián Richter, Robert L. Fischer, Youngmin Cho

Faculty Scholarship

Poor housing quality and housing crises have been linked to adverse outcomes for children. However, few studies have focused on the early childhood period or been able to pinpoint how the timing and duration of housing problems contributes to early educational success. This longitudinal study draws on linked administrative records from housing, education, social service and health agencies to examine the influence of exposure to housing neighborhood conditions since birth on school readiness of all children entering kindergarten over a four-year period in a big city school system. Using marginal structural models that properly account for dynamic housing and neighborhood …

Modeling The Sediment Fill Of The Upper Troy Pre-Glacial Bedrock Valley, Mchenry County, Illinois, Usa, Jodi Lau, Jason F. Thomason, David H. Malone, Eric W. Peterson

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

The Troy Bedrock Valley (TBV) and its tributary valleys are the principal pre-glacial drainage in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, USA. This study focused on the headwaters of a tributary that occurs in McHenry County, IL. Drilling, geophysical surveys, and the analysis of existing geologic and water well data were used to determine the lithologic and geometric characteristics of the sediments that fill the paleovalley. A 3D geologic model of these sediments was then developed in Petrel. More than 65 m of Quaternary sediments filled the paleovalley. The model domain covers approximately 30 km2. The valley drains to the west …