Digital Commons Network^™

Race, Space, And Surveillance: A Response To #Livingwhileblack: Blackness As Nuisance, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article is an invited response to an American University Law Review article titled “#LivingWhileBlack: Blackness as Nuisance” that has been widely discussed in the news media and in academic circles.

Learning Practices In Chinese Character Recognition: An Analysis Of Student Outcomes And Perceptions, Xiaoyan Hu

Open Access Dissertations

Research has shown that memorizing a character by its strokes is perhaps the most difficult aspect of learning the Chinese language, particularly for beginning students. Since learners can handwrite Chinese characters without knowing the meaning or the pronunciation, emphasizing drawing the characters from the beginning is not an efficient way of learning Chinese characters. Meanwhile, character recognition, grammar pattern drills, and memorization are not enough for college Chinese language learning. Currently, there is a gap in the literature about Chinese language acquisition research from classroom contexts to naturalistic settings, from an acquisition metaphor to a participation metaphor, and from Chinese …

Perspectives On Management Review Controls: Challenges And Solutions—Insights From A Qualitative Study Of The Issues, John Fogarty, Mark Beasley, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

This study focuses on subjective, judgment-based management review controls (MRCs) used by management teams of public companies (hereinafter referenced as “preparers” or “organizations”) as part of their efforts to address the risk of material misstatements in financial reporting and to effectively and efficiently provide management with reasonable assurance that internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) is effective. This report provides information and insight useful to preparers, auditors, and regulators on issues surrounding the design, implementation, execution, and documentation of MRCs, including issues in the context of ICFR assessments and attestations under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). …

Estimating Evolutionary Volatility In A Maximum-Likelihood Framework, Samuel Warren Tybout

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Evolutionary volatility is a trait that encompasses a clade’s combined capacity for origination and extinction. High volatility increases extinction risk, and declining global extinction rates are thought to be linked to declining volatility. Despite volatility’s scientific importance, there is no standardized way of measuring it. This study provides a new method, derived from a stochastic birth-death model, of estimating evolutionary volatility from fossil data. Simulations indicate that the method produces accurate and precise estimates for large fossil datasets. Analysis of fossil data for five bivalve families (Lucinidae, Mytilidae, Pectinidae, Pholadomyidae, and Veneridae) indicates that diversity projections made from the estimates …

Recalling The Georgic: Land, Labor, And Literature In American Ecological Consciousness, Sam Horrocks

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation argues that environmentalism and the environmental humanities are limited by an overinvestment in the discursive mode of pastoral, which provides the ecological logic of industrial urbanization by viewing the environment from the perspective of a leisured and alienated spectator. The pastoral mode enables environmental injustice by separating the realms of ecology and economy through a conventional elision of issues of labor and economics, rendering environmentalism unable to effect change within the spheres most important to ameliorating the pollution crisis. The pastoral mode thus frustrates the overarching goal of ecocriticism and environmentalism: we seek an ontological reunion of nature …

Bullets, Breeding, And Biodiversity: An Analysis Of Trophy Hunting In South Africa's Green Wildlife Economy, Dave E. Knieter

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Using a political ecology framework, I explore the relationship between international trophy hunting and South Africa’s private wildlife ranching industry. I interrogate the intersection of colonialism, capitalism, and conservation, which at its nexus are the discourses, policies, and logics that greenwash the production of nature. The proceeding chapters highlight a number of specific themes that problematize the neoliberalization of nature, including (i) the contradictions of imposing a market value to nonhumans; (ii) the operationalization of socioeconomic and environmental frameworks to justify trophy hunting and the breeding of nonhumans for profit; (iii) the use of African landscape and wildlife imagery to …

Investigating Effects Of Carbonate Minerals On Shale- Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Interactions In The Marcellus Shale, Brennan Matthew Ferguson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Natural gas extracted from tight shale formations, such as the Marcellus Shale, represent an important and developing front in energy exploration. By fracturing these formations using pressurized fracturing fluid, previously unobtainable hydrocarbon reserves may be tapped. While pursuing this resource hydraulic fracturing operations leave chemically complex fluids in the shale formation for at least two weeks. This provides a substantial opportunity for the hydraulic fracturing fluid (HFF) to react with the shale formation at reservoir temperature and pressure. In this study, we investigated the effects of the carbonates on shale-HFF reactions with a focus on the Marcellus Shale. We determined …

"We Have Ground To Cover For Each Other": A Case Study Of Mentoring Across Black Sorority Alumni In North Central West Virginia, Elizabeth C. Dever

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Black sororities are much more than their stereotypes of stepping and partying. They are service organizations that have a deep impact on their communities and help shape the identities of their members. These organizations can be seen at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominately White Institutions (PWIs). Black sororities are different than their traditionally white counterparts because the majority of active time in membership occurs after graduation. This thesis utilizes a case study of Black sororities in North Central West Virginia and West Virginia University. In spaces lacking in diversity and inclusion, Black sororities can serve as a …

'Making It' Through Migration: Success (Im)Mobility And 'Development' In The Gambia, Martin J. Aucoin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Contemporary scholarly and journalistic literature consistently represents migration from and through The Gambia using the lens of “crisis”. While these representations normally focus on Gambian migration to European states – a movement that is highly politicized – this thesis presents a case study of Gambian migration to a less-politicized destination, North America, in order to explore the relationship between lived experiences and representations of migration absent the discourse of crisis that pervades other scholarly and journalistic works. Drawing on the mobilities paradigm, feminist geographies of migration, critical race theory, transnationalism, and literatures on bordering, humanitarianism and development, I examine, through …

Relating Recharge Mechanisms To Chemical Changes In An Updip Appalachian Coal Mine Discharge: A Case Study From Lambert Run, West Virginia, Matthew Lewis Bell

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Impaired drainage from active and abandoned mines degrades the water quality of receiving streams and aquifers. Coal mine drainage (CMD) has been studied for decades in Appalachia, but unknowns and uncertainties are still present, including the influence of mine hydrogeology on the outflow chemistry of above-drainage mines. To evaluate the influence of recharge type on above-drainage mine chemistry, samples were collected every two weeks at a CMD outflow treatment system in Harrison County, West Virginia.

Samples were collected to measure geochemical changes taking place in the mine workings and along the flowpath of the passive treatment system. Samples were divided …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Crime Incidents For Forensic Investigation, Jamie Spencer Spaulding

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Crime analysis and mapping has been routinely employed to gather intelligence which informs security efforts and forensic investigations. Traditionally, geographic information systems in the form of third-party mapping applications are used for analysis of crime data but are often expensive and lack flexibility, transparency, or efficiency in uncovering associations and relationships in crime. Each crime incident and article of evidence within that incident has an associated spatial and temporal component which may yield significant and relevant information to the case. Wide variations exist in the techniques that departments use and commonly spatial and temporal components of crime are evaluated independently, …

"Treading On The Footprints Of History": American Catholic Pilgrimage As Public History, Charlotte Vester

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this thesis, I demonstrate how Catholic pilgrimage is a public history phenomenon. I define public history as public engagement, understanding, and use of the past. While I assert that pilgrimage is a public history phenomenon both in the past and in the present, my thesis will focus on American Catholic pilgrimage at the turn of the twentieth century. Each individual chapter will demonstrate that through pilgrimage, the faithful are engaged in public history in its various forms. Catholics actively took part in past-making and identity-construction in their roles as pilgrims. Through pilgrimage, Catholics were involved in the preservation and …

Alluvial Fans, Loess Plains, Lakes, And Distributive Fluvial Systems: Depositional Systems Of The Permian-Triassic Red Beds And Evaporites Of Wyoming (Usa), Jonathan Knapp

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The end-Permian ecological crisis was a period of warming and aridity reaching extreme levels by the end Permian and not recovering before the Middle Triassic. The Permian Goose Egg Formation and the Chugwater Group’s Early Triassic Red Peak Formation and Middle Triassic Alcova Limestone are a continuous or nearly continuous succession of rocks deposited during this warm, arid time in Wyoming. Comprised of red beds, evaporites, and rare carbonates, these rocks have not been subjected to detailed sedimentological investigations in the modern era. Previous interpretations of marine and marginal marine deposition have largely been based on the laterally extensive nature …

Green Completion As A Mitigation For Btex Exposure In Gas Flaring: Nigeria Case Study (Exposure Assessment And Cost Model), Akintunde S. Akinyemi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Gas flaring is an essential part of the oil and gas industry safety and waste management procedures; however, it presents a potential exposure to BTEX compounds, a group of Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds (NMVOC), within up to a 10-mile radius of the flare point. The physical and the psychological cost of the journey to work, make employees live close to the workplace. This study examined the perceived exposure of oil and gas industry workers to possible carcinogenic emissions outside the workplace. It looked at the outcomes of the exposure to BTEX through gas flaring drawing on archival data and using …

Uniform International Tax Collection And Distribution For Global Development, A Utopian Beps Alternative, Henry Ordower

All Faculty Scholarship

Under the guise of compelling multinational enterprises (MNEs) to pay their fair share of income taxes, the OECD and other multinational agencies have introduced proposals to prevent MNEs from eroding the income tax base of developed economies by continuing to shift income artificially to low or zero tax jurisdictions. Some of the proposals have garnered substantial multinational support, including recent support from the new U.S. presidential administration for a global minimum tax. This Article reviews many of those international proposals. The proposals tend to concentrate the incremental tax revenue from the prevention of base erosion into the treasuries of the …

'Amageddon': The Unholy Trinity Of Class Monopoly Rent In The Emerald City, Elijah Connor Hansen

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Intense redevelopment has steamrolled across Seattle’s South Lake Union and Belltown neighborhoods, home to the headquarters of the world’s largest ecommerce corporation, Amazon. After the corporation established a presence in what is now referred to as ‘Amazonia’ in 2007, the surrounding urban landscape underwent a colossal metamorphic overhaul as high-tech and biotech industries, along with bourgeois luxury high rises, replaced old warehouses and empty parking lots. These new industries have attracted tens of thousands of people to the city, resulting in an oversaturated housing supply and an ensuing housing affordability crisis as rents have continued to skyrocket year after year. …

Leaf Angle And Leaf Stomata Responses To Experimental Drought In Quercus Velutina And Acer Saccharum, Brittany Nichole Casey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The possibility of increased severity and frequency of drought conditions, as a result of global climate variability, greatly complicates our ability to forecast future forest functions such as productivity and carbon sequestration. Assessing how tree species vary in their response to drought can aid in predicting the impact on forest ecosystems as a whole. Throughfall exclusion (TfE) experiments are potentially useful tools to simulate realistic drought conditions within intact forest ecosystems. We employed a TfE experiment during the 2018 growing season within the WV Land Trust’s Elizabeth’s Woods Nature Preserve, near Morgantown, WV, to assess the leaf angle and leaf …

Relating Sonic Velocities, Minimum Horizontal Stress, And Natural Fracture Distribution To Stimulation Efficiency During Completion Of The Marcellus Shale Mip-3h Unconventional Well, West Virginia, Usa, Kaitlin Gayle Evans

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Log data from the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory (MSEEL) was acquired along the lateral of the MIP-3H well. This unconventional shale-gas well was completed within the Marcellus Shale just above the Cherry Valley Limestone, a thin limestone member separating organic rich units of the Marcellus. The geomechanical moduli, Poisson’s Ratio (PR) and Young’s Modulus (YME), were generated using compressional and shear sonic logs to indicate zones of increasing brittleness for each of the 28 stages along the 6124 ft. (1867m) horizontal lateral. Brittle reservoir rock is more readily fractured during hydraulic stimulation than more malleable rock. Stages with …

Innovative Approaches To 3d Gis Modeling For Volumetric And Geoprocessing Applications In Subsurface Infrastructures In A Virtual Immersive Environment, Pragya Srivastava

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

As subsurface features remain largely ‘out of sight, out of mind’, this has led to challenges when dealing with underground space and infrastructures and especially so for those working in GIS. Since subsurface infrastructure plays a major role in supporting the needs of modern society, groups such as city planners and utility companies and decision makers are looking for an ‘holistic’ approach where the sustainable use of underground space is as important as above ground space. For such planning and management, it is crucial to examine subsurface data in a form that is amenable to 3D mapping and that can …

Changing Dynamics Of Opioid Overdoses In West Virginia And Impact Of Medication For Opioid Use Disorder And Recurrence Of Overdose On Reducing Mortality Among West Virginia Medicaid Beneficiaries, Zheng Dai

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background

With increasing number of opioid overdoses in West Virginia (WV) in recent years and limited number of people receiving treatment, the dissertation study aims to better understand fatal overdose problems in WV and the impact of medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) in preventing overdose deaths.

Method

WV drug-related deaths from 2005 to 2018 was used to describe the involvement of fentanyl and FAs. WV Medicaid claim data was analyzed to describe the recurrent opioid overdose and the changes in receipt of MOUD. Further, a Medicaid opioid overdose cohort was created to evaluate the effect of occurrence of recurrent …

The Spatial Historian: Creating A Spatially Aware Historical Research System, James P. Schindling

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The intent of this study is to design a geospatial information system capable of facilitating the extraction and analysis of the fragmentary snapshots of history contained in hand-written historical documents. This customized system necessarily bypasses off-the-shelf GIS in order to support these unstructured primary historical research materials and bring long dormant spatial stories previously hidden in archives, libraries, and other documentary storage locations to life. The software platform discussed here integrates the tasks of information extraction, data management, and analysis while simultaneously giving primary emphasis to supporting the spatial and humanistic analysis and interpretation of the data contents. The premise …

Utilizing Conservation Genetics As A Strategy For Recovering The Endangered Candy Darter (Etheostoma Osburni) In West Virginia, Brin E. Kessinger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Candy Darter (Etheostoma osburni) is a small freshwater fish native to the New River drainage in West Virginia and Virginia that was listed as endangered in November 2018. It has been extirpated from much of its historic range in West Virginia, restricting it to the Gauley and Greenbrier river drainages. In addition to extirpations, the species is threatened by introgressive hybridization with the invasive Variegate Darter (E. variatum). Previous research primarily focused on hybridization, but population genetic analyses were limited. Population genetic analyses aim to identify distinct populations through genetic structure and characterize the levels …

Voices Of PłaszóW: The Impact Of Schindler's List On A Former Concentration Camp, Jordan L. Riggs

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List drew international attention to the site of Płaszów, a former Nazi concentration camp in Poland near the city of Kraków. This increased attention on the site impacted the area, leading to an increase in film-tourism, shown both in organized tours and published guidebooks. The site and film also held a personal connection to two sets of individuals, the descendants of Nazi commandant Amon Goeth and Holocaust survivors, which often prompted them to return to the site and push for more interpretation. This thesis addresses the lasting impact of the film on the site and the site’s …

Resilience In The Mountains: Exploring The Labor And Motives Of Food-Caregiver Women Repairing Broken Food Systems In West Virginia Communities, Heidi Lynn Gum

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Over the past four years the Food Justice Lab, now housed within the Center for Resilient Communities at West Virginia University, hosted a series of food access planning workshops across the state of West Virginia. Mobilizing more than 200 participants, the Nourishing Networks workshop training program was designed to build grassroots capacity for food system change. Eighty-percent of workshop participants were women and dialogues recorded at these events revealed how women are disproportionately impacted by food insecurity and disproportionately labor to repair a broken food system. Women in West Virginia are not only growing food, feeding their families, selling it …

Shaping Urban Spaces To Fit Into Religious Boundaries Through Landscape, Niharika Alahari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In India, rivers are considered a sacred entity for Hindus and temples on the banks of rivers are a common sight in Indian architectural character. Devotees come to worship and perform small ceremonies on ghats, banks of the river, to the gods and ancestors. This is considered a part of an important ritual prior to entering the temple associated with the river. One such river in South India where this practice occurs, is the Krishna river in Vijayawada, an important pilgrimage center for devotees and the location for this study. Although this practice is a daily occurrence and one hundred …

Developing A Biophilic City Through Natural Land Transformation Analysis And Geodesign: The Case Of Purbachal New Town, Bangladesh, Udday Shankur Datta

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the world. To solve the ever-increasing need for housing and to reduce the pressure of the population from the capital city, the Purbachal satellite city was planned. It is the biggest planned township in Bangladesh with an area of over 25 square kilometers. Purbachal is situated at the confluence of the Shitalakhya and Balu rivers. Historically a low-lying wetland, Purbachal has gone through a rapid transformation in past decades. The water bodies around the area have been filled in to create new developable land. Through remote …

The State And War On Poverty: British Welfare Development And Its Legacies For Malawi, 1930s-1983, Gift Wasambo Kayira

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation documents the struggles and dilemmas that the Malawian state endured as it attempted to achieve its developmental goals from the 1930s to 1983. It contributes to histories of development by focusing on the interventions both the colonial and postcolonial states made to improve the living standards of African rural communities, the ideas which shaped state programs, and the behavior of the state which such interventions reveal. Scholars typically argue that state policy in Malawi was necessarily destructive and limited the economic progress of the local communities. The state deliberately pursued land, market, and other agricultural policies that constrained …

Physical And Chemical Properties Of Clastic Sediments From Two Caves In The Northern Karst Region Of Puerto Rico, Autum R. Downey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Geochemical properties and organic characteristics are essential to understanding the general depositional dynamics of a cave. Most work on clastic cave sediments focuses on physical properties of sediments. Little work has been done on bulk organic matter and geochemical properties.

This project reports physical and geochemical characterization of cave sediments from two caves in the northern karst region of Puerto Rico: El Tallonal Cave and Cueva Clara. Core and grab samples were collected and analyzed for particle size, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, organic matter characteristics using fluorescence spectroscopy, and major and minor elements using X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The sediments …

Impact Of Chytrid Fungus Pathogen On The Skin Microbiome Of Frogs In Northern Idaho And Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Washington, Philip M. Campos

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Amphibians worldwide are under threat from the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, which is caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Bd is associated with the population declines of an estimated 501 species, 90 of which are presumed or confirmed extinct, making this the greatest documented loss of biodiversity attributed to a disease. Researching the amphibian skin microbiome may provide solutions to conservation of amphibians. Two main relationships have been observed between Bd and the microbiome: 1) bacteria producing antifungal metabolites can inhibit Bd and improve survival against the disease and 2) infection by Bd is believed to affect the composition …

Adultery, Infidelity, And Consensual Non-Monogamy, Edward D. Stein

Articles

Thirty-eight states have laws in place that relate to adultery. Though criminal laws against adultery are not frequently enforced, the network of criminal laws, tort laws, and domestic relations laws related to adultery disincentivize extra-marital sex, an effect heightened by the stigma and other social attitudes associated with adultery. This Essay argues that the socio-legal state of affairs concerning adultery is bad for marriages (and similar relationships), bad for public health, and is simply bad public policy. This is in part because the law treats infidelity-having sex with someone other than your primary partner without his or her consent or …