Digital Commons Network^™

Crime In Context: Utilizing Risk Terrain Modeling And Conjunctive Analysis Of Case Configurations To Explore The Dynamics Of Criminogenic Behavior Settings., Joel M. Caplan, Leslie W. Kennedy, Jeremy D. Barnum, Eric L. Piza

Publications and Research

Risk terrain modeling (RTM) is a geospatial crime analysis tool designed to diagnose environmental risk factors for crime and identify the places where their spatial influence is collocated to produce vulnerability for illegal behavior. However, the collocation of certain risk factors’ spatial influences may result in more crimes than the collocation of a different set of risk factors’ spatial influences. Absent from existing RTM outputs and methods is a straightforward method to compare these relative interactions and their effects on crime. However, as a multivariate method for the analysis of discrete categorical data, conjunctive analysis of case configurations (CACC) can …

The Influence Of Job Assignment On Community Engagement: Bicycle Patrol And Community-Oriented Policing, Victoria A. Sytsma, Eric L. Piza

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study is to compare a specialized community-oriented policing (COP) unit to a reactive unit on officer perceptions of public contact and officer perceptions of job performance. We also compare bicycle patrol officers to motor vehicle patrol officers within these units. Using a static group comparison design, questionnaires were distributed to officers within the Toronto Police Service (n = 178). Bicycle patrol is associated with more contacts with the public and higher rates of proactive policing when compared to motor vehicle patrol and bicycle officers are more likely to rate higher on several measures of crime control. …

Spatiotemporal Convergence Of Crime And Vehicle Crash Hotspots: Additional Consideration For Policing Places, Jeremy G. Carter, Eric L. Piza

Publications and Research

Policing strategies that seek to simultaneously combat crime and vehicle crashes operate under the assumption that these two problems have a corollary relationship—an assumption that has received scant empirical attention and is the focus of the present study. Geocoded vehicle crash, violent crime, and property crime totals across were aggregated to Indianapolis census blocks over a 36-month period (2011-2013). Time series negative binomial regression and local indicators of spatial autocorrelation analyses were conducted. Results indicate that both violent and property crime are significantly related to vehicle crash counts, both overall and during the temporal confines of patrol tours. Relationship strength …

The King And The Land: A Geography Of Royal Power In The Biblical World, Stephen C. Russell

Publications and Research

The King and the Land offers an innovative history of space and power in the biblical world. Stephen C. Russell shows how the monarchies in ancient Israel and Judah asserted their power over strategically important spaces such as privately-held lands, religious buildings, collectively-governed towns, and urban water systems. Among the case studies examined are Solomon's use of foreign architecture, David's dedication of land to Yahweh, Jehu's decommissioning of Baal's temple, Absalom's navigation of the collective politics of Levantine towns, and Hezekiah's reshaping of the tunnels that supplied Jerusalem with water.

By treating the full range of archaeological and textual evidence …

The Impact Of The Boston Marathon Bombing On Public Willingness To Cooperate With Police, Gary Lafree, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

While a key to law enforcement success is the willingness of the public to cooperate with police, we have limited understanding of how terrorist attacks affect this public readiness. Prior research suggests that terrorist attacks might increase citizen cooperation with police through both prevention efforts and rally effects. We test these assertions with three nationally representative surveys on respondents’ willingness to help police combat terrorism: one before the Boston Marathon bombings and two after. As predicted, public willingness to report suspicious behavior to police increases significantly following the bombings and there is evidence that these increases generalize to ordinary crime. …

Gender, Everyday Mobility, And Mass Transit In Urban Asia, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Stronger Together: Increasing Connections Between Academic And Public Libraries, Maureen Richards

Publications and Research

Much has been written about collaborations between public and academic libraries. These collaborations generally take the form of joint libraries, special programs or consortia. They are motivated by the desire to do public outreach or community building or to provide better facilities, services or library resources to users from both library systems or, in the case of consortia, by economics.

Since the library website is now the most common entry point to an academic library, this paper explores the opportunities for building connections between an academic and public library’s resources by hyperlinking to public library resources. Deepening these connections supports …

Global Command And Control For The Future Operating Concept: Implications For Structural Design And Information, Ian M. Slazinik, Benjamin T. Hazen

Faculty Publications

Due to increasing demands on air mobility aircraft, US Transportation Command(USTRANSCOM) has more recently advocated retaining operational control (OPCON)of aircraft it might have transferred to a requesting combatant command in the past. This recent approach mirrors that of similar-type civilian logistics operations that are centrally managed to maximize efficiencies by flowing resources to the point of need without having to navigate through time-consuming sourcing processes. Furthermore, the acceleration of information availability has condensed decision timelines and changed how similar civilian organizations organize and perform, allowing them to react seemingly on a dime to changing market conditions anywhere.4While retaining OPCON might …

Brandishing Our Air, Space, And Cyber Swords: Recommendations For Deterrence And Beyond, Mark Reith

Faculty Publications

This article examines how the nation could better prepare to deter aggressive action in space and cyberspace, and if necessary, prevail should deterrence fail. The key themes throughout this article include a strong need for space and cyber situational awareness, the need for an international attribution and escalation framework, and a national investment in space and cyber education, along with an updated national strategy and military doctrine. Although related, this article focuses on deterrence and avoids the topic of cyber coercion.

Climate And Capitalism: English Perceptions Of Newfoundland's Natural Environment And Economic Value, 1610-1699, Joshua Tavenor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

For English merchants, planters and politicians, colonizing Newfoundland required learning the limitations and opportunities afforded by the island’s natural environment. The crucial period for this learning process took place from 1610, the first English effort to colonize the island, to the 1699 passing of the Act to Encourage the Trade to Newfoundland, which defined the cod fishery as the island’s only viable industry. During these eighty-nine years, English enterprises and policies consistently failed to meet the expectations of their backers, and new information challenged accepted ideas about Newfoundland’s climate and natural resources, pressuring the supporters of those decisions to …

Accountability, Conservation And Community: Measuring The Local Economic Impacts Of Protected Areas, Catharine A.M. Brazeau

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Canada has committed to help protect biodiversity through an increase in effectively and equitably managed systems of protected areas (PAs) by 2020. If Canada fulfills this commitment, the country will see the largest expansion of PA networks in its history. Although employing ‘equitable and effective management’ suggests PAs have a responsibility to consider their effects on local stakeholders, on the whole, Canada’s PA agencies do not publicly and systematically report on their jurisdictions’ local economic impacts. To address this gap, this thesis aims investigate mechanisms for PA agencies to identify and …

First Nations And Adaptive Water Governance In Southern Ontario, Canada, Thomas Dyck

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Water quality and quantity are prominent concerns for First Nations across Canada. The federal government shares the responsibility with First Nations to ensure water resources on-reserves meet the needs of First Nations. Federal approaches have been predominantly technical, focused on addressing issues related to infrastructure, maintenance, training, and monitoring. This approach is important. However, water issues concerning First Nations go beyond technical issues and relate to inadequate participation in decision making, poorly defined roles and responsibilities, and approaches to managing water resources on-reserve that have not accounted for local context. These issues parallel historical nation-to-nation (i.e., First Nations and federal …

"Going The Distance So Our Food Doesn't Have To": Case Studies Of Creative Public Procurement At Canadian And Uk Universities, Lori Stahlbrand

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation explores three efforts to develop sustainable local food systems at public universities in Canada and the UK. One is a partnership between the Canadian non-profit, Local Food Plus (LFP), and the University of Toronto (U of T). The other two are partnerships between the UK non-profit, the Soil Association (SA), and two British universities – Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and the University of the Arts London (UAL). In all three cases studies, a formal certification program to support the transition to more sustainable local food systems was a central feature. The author of this dissertation was the founder …

Canada’S Relationship With Women Migrant Sex Workers; Producing ‘Vulnerable Migrant Workers’ Through “Protecting Workers From Abuse And Exploitation”, Rachelle Daley

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Canada’s immigration regulations and policy instructions, collectively known as ‘Protecting Workers from Abuse and Exploitation’ (PWAE), instruct visa officials not to process temporary work permits when there is suspicion that migrants may be at risk of sexual abuse or exploitation in industries related to sex work. The regulations are part of Canada’s temporary foreign worker program, located within an anti-trafficking initiative.

Stretching across disciplines and focusing on critical migration scholarship, this research uses a communications studies lens to unpack the power of categorization, and the dividing practices that produce, maintain and normalize inclusion and exclusion, through the conceptualization of the …

Newcomers, Welcome? Exploring The Connection Between Demographic Change, Immigration Legislation Design And Policy Mobilities In Ageing Japan, Héctor Goldar Perrote

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Japan is ageing, and its population is declining. Given the potential detrimental economic and social consequences brought about by this sort of demographic change, it has been suggested that the Japanese could benefit from the implementation of more liberal (im)migration policies. This thesis studies the demographic change – immigration policy development nexus from the perspective of the state in the context of Japan and assesses the role that immigration plays within the larger population debate. A constructivist grounded theory methodology is utilised to analyse primary and secondary qualitative data. Additionally, two theoretical approaches of political demography (Robbins and Smith, 2016) …

From Brain Drain To Brain Train – A Transnational Case Analysis Of Nigerian Migrant Health Care Workers, Sheri Adekola

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study involves a micro-analysis of the experience of Nigerian-trained health professionals in Canada and is designed to understand the experiences of these skilled migrants, the impact of their migration, and how further migration might be stimulated or reduced through engagement in transnational activities with workers still in Nigeria. The research questions asked, (a) Which discourses of skill exchange are most meaningful to Nigerian health care workers in Canada? (b) How is this process of value exchange and extraction structured by transnational connectivity? (c) How does this research contribute to current concepts regarding skilled migration?

Framed by the Integrative Model …

Event-Triggered Near Optimal Adaptive Control Of Interconnected Systems, Vignesh Narayanan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Increased interest in complex interconnected systems like smart-grid, cyber manufacturing have attracted researchers to develop optimal adaptive control schemes to elicit a desired performance when the complex system dynamics are uncertain. In this dissertation, motivated by the fact that aperiodic event sampling saves network resources while ensuring system stability, a suite of novel event-sampled distributed near-optimal adaptive control schemes are introduced for uncertain linear and affine nonlinear interconnected systems in a forward-in-time and online manner.

First, a novel stochastic hybrid Q-learning scheme is proposed to generate optimal adaptive control law and to accelerate the learning process in the presence of …

Contributing Factors To Child Stunting In Guatemala: A Systems Analysis Focused On Enteric Disease Transmission And Mycotoxin Exposure, Lee Emerson Voth-Gaeddert

Doctoral Dissertations

"Child stunting -- low height-for-age -- is a United Nation's indicator for chronic malnutrition that has been linked to both acute and chronic health problems. Data from Guatemala suggests for children under five years of age, 49% are classified as stunted. This dissertation tests the following hypotheses, among children in Guatemala 1) environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is correlated with height-for-age, 2) aflatoxin B (AFB) exposure is correlated with height-for-age, and 3) AFB exposure is correlated with EED. A network analysis was conducted on data from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) collected in 2012 to identify trends in a …

Optimal Electric Vehicle Scheduling : A Co-Optimized System And Customer Perspective, Maigha

Doctoral Dissertations

"Electric vehicles provide a two pronged solution to the problems faced by the electricity and transportation sectors. They provide a green, highly efficient alternative to the internal combustion engine vehicles, thus reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Secondly, they bear the potential of supporting the grid as energy storage devices while incentivizing the customers through their participation in energy markets. Despite these advantages, widespread adoption of electric vehicles faces socio-technical and economic bottleneck. This dissertation seeks to provide solutions that balance system and customer objectives under present technological capabilities. The research uses electric vehicles as controllable loads and resources. The …

Heat Wave And Mortality: A Multicountry, Multicommunitystudy, Y. Guo, A. Gasparrini, B.G. Armstrong, B Tawatsupa, A. Tobias, E. Lavinge, M. De Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coelho, X. Pan, H. Kim, M. Hashizume, Y. Honda, Y. Leon Guo, C. Wu, A. Zanobetti, J. D. Schwartz, M. L. Bell, M. Scortichini, P. Michelozzi, K. Punnasiri, S. Li, L. Tian, S. D. Osorio Garcia, X. Seposo, A. Overcenco, A. Zeka, P. J. Goodman, T. N. Dang, D. V. Dung, F. Mayvaneh, P. H. Nascimento Saldiva, G. Williams, S. Tong

Articles

Heat waves of all definitions had significant cumulative associations with mortality in all countries, but varied by community. The higher the temperature threshold used to define heat waves, the higher heat wave associations on mortality. However, heat wave duration did not modify the impacts. The association between heat waves and mortality appeared acutely and lasted for 3 and 4 d. Heat waves had higher associations with mortality in moderate cold and moderate hot areas than cold and hot areas. There were no added effects of heat waves on mortality in all countries/regions, except for Brazil, Moldova, and Taiwan. Heat waves …

Exploring Smoking, Mental Health And Smoking-Related Disease In A Nationally Representative Sample Of Older Adults In Ireland: A Retrospective Secondary Analysis, Annette Burns, Judith Strawbridge, Luke Clancy, Frank Doyle

Articles

Objective

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death among individuals with mental health difficulties (MHD). The aim of the current study was to determine the impact of smoking on the physical health of older adults with MHD in Ireland and to explore the extent to which smoking mediated or moderated associations between MHD and smoking-related diseases.

Methods

Cross-sectional analysis of a nationally representative sample of 8175 community-dwelling adults aged 50 and over from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) was undertaken. Multivariate adjusted logistic regression models were used to assess the association between MHD, smoking (current/past/never) and smoking-related …

Development Of A Variogram Approach To Spatial Outlier Detection Using A Supplemental Digital Elevation Model Dataset, Zane Daniel Helwig

Masters Theses

"When developing a ground water model, the quality of the dataset should first be evaluated. Spatial outliers can lead to predictions which are not representative of actual conditions. In order to isolate misrepresentative points, a method is presented which examines the experimental variogram of a ground water elevation dataset. To define a threshold variance between pairs of ground water elevation measures, ground elevation values from a digital elevation model (DEM) are used to determine a maximum reasonable variance expected to occur on the experimental variogram. To determine appropriate DEM parameters, a separate study was also done which observed characteristic behavior …

The Edtech Blog: Learning Beyond The Classroom Through Social Spaces For Informal Learning, Joseph Rene Corbeil, Maria Elena Corbeil

Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

Thirteen years ago, the EdTech Blog was created as an informal learning space to promote a professional community of learners enrolled in a fully online graduate program. The blog was created to enable current and former EdTech students to discuss contemporary topics and issues related to the profession. This paper will provide: an overview of the literature on social spaces for informal learning; a brief history and description of the EdTech blog, its purpose and goals, and how it was implemented; and the results of phase one of a formative evaluation where students weighed in on the blog's goals and …

Water Governance In Haiti: An Assessment Of Laws And Institutional Capacities, Ryan Stoa

Faculty Publications

The Republic of Haiti struggles to sustainably manage its water resources. Public health is compromised by low levels of water supply, sanitation, and hygiene, and water resources are often contaminated and unsustainably allocated. While poor governance is often blamed for these shortcomings, the laws and institutions regulating water resources in Haiti are poorly understood, especially by the international community. This study brings together and analyzes Haitian water laws, assesses institutional capacities, and provides a case study of water management in northern Haiti in order to provide a more complete picture of the sector. Funded by the Inter-American Development Bank as …

The Ginney Block: Reminiscences Of An Italian-American Dead-End Street Kid, Edward A. D'Alessandro

Cleveland Memory

Long before Progressive Field, the area just south of downtown was the site of the Haymarket district, the Central Market and parts of the Big Italy neighborhood. Edward D'Alessandro lived in "the Ginney Block," an Italian immigrant apartment building, until the new Cleveland Union Terminal construction project demolished it in 1928. Original publication date 1988.

Equitable Apportionment Of Shared Transboundary River Waters: A Case Study Of Modifications Of The Indus Waters Treaty, Waseem Ahmad Qureshi

San Diego International Law Journal

The principle of equitable utilization and the doctrine of equitable apportionment are regarded highly in customary international law for the apportionment of transboundary river waters between upper and lower riparian states. In this regard, the Indus Waters Treaty is an excellent example of the pragmatic implementation of the principle of equitable utilization, as well as of the principles of equity and justice. The treaty allottedthree eastern rivers to India and three western rivers to Pakistan in an attempt to equitably divide the shared Indus River basin and its five tributaries between the neighboring countries. However, India has now expressed an …

Culture As A Tool Of Exclusion: An Analysis Of Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine, Abigail Maccumber

Scripps Senior Theses

Using the film La Haine (1995), directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, as an object of analysis, this paper explores culture as a tool of exclusion in France through sociological, architectural, and political contexts. It investigates La Haine as one of the first representations of the banlieue to mainstream French audiences, as well as the ways in which the film reveals how immigrants and children of immigrants struggle to find personal, cultural, and national identity in France.

Power And Politics In Research Design And Practice: Opening Up Space For Social Equity In Interdisciplinary, Multi-Jurisdictional And Community-Based Research, Valoree Gagnon, Hugh Gorman, Emma Norman

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Working collaboratively with communities is commonly considered a cornerstone of good practice in research involving social-ecological concerns. Increasingly, funding agencies also recognise that such collaborations are most productive when community partners have some influence on the design and implementation of the projects that benefit from their participation. However, researchers engaged with this work often struggle to actively engage community members in this way and, in particular, Indigenous peoples. In this article, we argue that useful strategies for facilitating such engagement are to leave space in the research plan for questions of interest to community partners and to encourage equitable interactions …

Emission, Education, And Politics: An Empirical Study Of The Carbon Dioxide And Methane Environmental Kuznets Curve, Cody Williamson

The Park Place Economist

This study will estimate carbon dioxide and methane emissions of 181 countries in 2012 through the use of a quadratic function of per capita GDP. Several variables will be used as controls; with GDP per capita, mean years of education, and government regime being the most important. This study estimates the emissions of carbon dioxide and methane because the EPA states that these two gasses account for roughly 92% of the worlds greenhouse gasses, thus making it vital that we have a strong understanding of both gases. Also, no literature known to the author has looked into the evidence of …

Teaching Teamwork In Australian University Business Disciplines: Evidence From A Systematic Literature Review, Linda Riebe, Antonia Girardi, Craig Whitsed

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Australian employers continue to indicate that the development of teamwork skills in graduates is as important as mastering technical skills required for a particular career. In Australia, the reporting on the teaching of teamwork skills has emanated across a range of disciplines including health and engineering, with less of a focus on business related disciplines. Although Australian university business schools appear to value the importance and relevance of developing teamwork skills, implementation of the teaching, learning, and assessment of teamwork skills remains somewhat of a pedagogical conundrum. This paper presents evidence from a systematic literature review as to the salient …