Digital Commons Network^™

Applying Transfer Learning For Street-Scale Nuisance Flood Forecasting In Coastal-Urban Cities, Binata Roy, Jonathan L. Goodall, Diana Mcspadden, Chetan Kumar, Steven Goldenberg, Yidi Wang, Malachi Schram

VMASC Publications

An important challenge with Machine Learning (ML) is its transferability; i.e., whether a ML model trained on one set of data can be applied to a second set of data without requiring full re-training of the model. Transfer Learning (TL) addresses this challenge by transferring knowledge learned in the source domain (the data it was trained on) to the target domain (a second set of data that is statistically different but related, which the model was not trained on). This study investigates the use of TL for street-scale nuisance flood forecasting by exploring whether a ML model trained for one …

Indigenous Vs Western Land Management Strategies In The Pacific Islands, Catherine Farley

Pomona Senior Theses

This paper explores the critical role of sustainable land management in the Pacific Islands, focusing on its intersection with climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and cultural preservation. Indigenous land management practices, shaped over generations, are integral in maintaining ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, soil fertility, clean water, and coastal protection. These methods not only enhance resilience to climate change but also preserve species crucial for food security and cultural practices. By comparing traditional and Western land management strategies, this research suggests ways to integrate modern technology with indigenous knowledge to improve adaptive capacity. The paper addresses the gap in …

Humans Among Giants: Urban Vitality And Implications Of Vertical Development In Hong Kong, Laura Jaramillo

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis explores the complex relationship between vertical urbanism and street life, using Hong Kong as a case study to investigate how human-scale urbanism persists and adapts amidst the dominance of skyscrapers. While vertical structures symbolize modernity, economic growth, and global influence, they often overshadow the vibrancy and social connectivity that characterize ground-level spaces. This research draws on the theoretical frameworks of Jane Jacobs, David Harvey, and David Sibley to examine the interplay between vertical urbanism and street life, focusing on how spatial design impacts community engagement and cultural vibrancy. By analyzing the coexistence of modern skyscrapers and traditional street-level …

The New Urbanism In New York City: A Case Study Comparing Battery Park City And Alphabet City, Lena Farley

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis examines two Manhattan neighborhoods, Battery Park City and Alphabet City, through the lens of New Urbanism—an urban planning approach developed in the 1990s. New Urbanist principles prioritize walkability, connectivity, mixed-use development, diversity, varied housing options, architectural quality, green transportation, sustainability, and accessible green spaces. While Battery Park City represents a top-down, master-planned New Urbanist neighborhood based on a 1979 plan, Alphabet City emerged from the 1811 Manhattan grid with significant community-driven design, notably through community gardens and grassroots initiatives. Using a mixed-methods approach including residential surveys, qualitative, and quantitative analyses, this research investigates how these neighborhoods embody New …

Huchum: The Legacy Of Fire Suppression, Indigenous Land Management, And Media Representation, Carolyn Coyne

Pomona Senior Theses

In my thesis, I examine how various forms of news media from the 1900s to present day in Ohlone territory have framed a particular hegemonic ideology around fire that matches early colonial journal entries – an ideology that is fueled by fear, sensationalism, and exclusion and directly commits violence against the Ohlone people. I investigate this time period because this is when modern news corporations, like The New York Times, rose into prominence. Specifically, I question how media representations of fire inform regulations over controlled burns; what are the similarities in discourse between media framing and policy? What tactics are …

Fire History, Ecological History, And Historical Human-Environment Interactions In The Northern Great Plains, James Victor Benes

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation explores the spatiotemporal signatures of fire in North American grassland ecosystems. In three chapters, I explore different aspects of fire history in the northern Great Plains. Chapter 1 is an introduction. Chapter 2 focuses on the Euro-American Settlement Period (ca. 1850–1950 C.E.). Fire histories from six different lakes in the Nebraska Sandhills are compared with two periods of historic drought and the establishment of United States Post Offices. Five of the six records show increased levels of biomass burning during the initial phases of Euro-American Settlement. Chapter 3 is a long-term (ca. 15,000 years), high-resolution fire history and …

Space For The Departed: Burial, Land Scarcity, And Bone-Ash Apartments In China, Xinyi Wu

Pitzer Senior Theses

The rise of bone ash apartments in China reflects a layered response to urban land scarcity, shifting funeral policies, and real estate speculation. As the state mandates cremation and restricts private cemetery development, traditional burial customs are increasingly reshaped by spatial limitations, economic pressures, and political regulation.

For some families, bone ash apartments function as modern ancestral halls—domestic spaces for remembrance and ritual continuity. For others, they represent a pragmatic investment strategy, offering long-term storage of ashes within assets that retain market value.

This thesis examines how urban planning, state funeral policy, real estate dynamics, and the disintegration of neighborhood …

Beyond The Bin: Transforming Relationships With Waste Through A Collaborative Inquiry-Based Environmental Education Curriculum, Kaylee V. Morris

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis presents Beyond the Bin, a collaborative inquiry-based environmental education curriculum designed to transform how young learners understand and interact with waste. Motivated by the limitations of current downstream waste education—focused primarily on consumer behavior and individual disposal practices—this project argues for an upstream approach that identifies the underlying cause of these prevalent systems of disposability. Grounded in environmental education theory, affective learning, and ecological literacy, the curriculum encourages students to rethink waste as a material with creative potential rather than something to discard. Through creative engagement, experiential learning, and community-based initiatives, the curriculum fosters collaboration between students, teachers, …

The Solar Maya: Resilience And Strength In The Face Of Climate Change, Anna Frances Paradise

Pitzer Senior Theses

The solar maya of Yucatán, Mexico is an example of a sustainable agroecosystem that holds the potential to embed resilience in the livelihoods of those who utilize it. However, this traditional and indigenous system of agriculture is threatened by the immense forces of urbanization and modernization imposed on the area. I conducted research that included 14 different in-person and online interviews of academic and local personnel in Mérida and in nearby Yucatecan municipalities as well as visited seven different solares mayas, documenting my findings through audio recordings and photographs. With this collection of qualitative data, I found trends in the …

Public Land And Political Identity: Problematizing Open Space Preserves In Marin County, California, Samantha Gottsegen

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis is an interdisciplinary exploration of the role of protected natural areas—namely county-run open space preserves—in shaping political identity in Marin County, California. I critically examine the politicization of public lands and the sociorelational dynamics that emerge within local communities surrounding protected open space. I seek to deconstruct dominant understandings of landscape and nature as apolitical, neutral, or untouched, instead approaching public land as a site of ongoing meaning-making, identity formation, and power negotiation. I further place emphasis on the role of the state, through county governing bodies and affiliated organizations, in mediating access, constructing narratives of ownership, and …

The Strategic And Governance Implications Of Solar Radiation Modification: Perspectives From Delegates Of International Climate Negotiations, Todd L. Cherry, Steffen Kallbekken, David M. Mcevoy, Wai Yan Siu

ODU Articles

The lack of progress in addressing climate change has led to increased interest in solar radiation modification (SRM)—a collection of large-scale interventions that cool the planet by managing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth. SRM complicates climate change governance because, in addition to advancing collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, governance needs to restrain unilateral SRM action while balancing diverging actor interests, ethical risks and scientific uncertainty. We survey international climate policy experts for their assessments of the potential for effective global governance of SRM and the likelihood of possible international responses to unilateral SRM scenarios. …

I To I (Insights Into Islamic) Financial Literacy Among Secondary School Students, Nur Syamilah Md Noor, Nor Hanim Elias, Mardziyah Mohd Isa Mohd Isa, Muhammad Abrar Bahaman, Razinda Tasnim Abdul Rahim

International Conference on Business and Management Research (ICBMR)

Financial literacy is a crucial life skill that enables individuals to manage resources responsibly and make informed economic decisions. In the context of secondary school students, early exposure to financial education provides a foundation for future financial stability and resilience. This study, Insights into Islamic (I to I) Financial Literacy Among Secondary School Students in Perlis, explores the level of awareness, understanding, and practice of financial literacy from an Islamic perspective. The research emphasizes core Islamic financial principles such as the balance between needs and wants, the significance of saving and investing through permissible means, and the prohibition of riba …

Correlating Csr Theory And Soil Texture To Bridge The Gap In Ecological Planting Strategies For Landscape Architecture, James E. Theiss

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Many studies are focused on the benefits of including natural and ecoregional landscape design within urban habitats; however, a focused approach to how landscape architects can begin including ecological applications within their planting designs has not been fully assessed. Once the knowledge gap between ecology and how landscape architects plan landscape plantings is fully realized, research on the benefits of bringing nature back to urban environments can be thoroughly assessed. It is common knowledge that landscape design involves creating aesthetically pleasing plant combinations based on simple site characteristics that can influence how a plant grows (Tabassum S. et al., 2020; …

Iere Annual Report 2025, Erin Largo-Wight, Heather Barnes Truelove, Kelly Rhoden, Nicole Lowe, Ruby Cox

Annual Reports

2025 Annual Report of the Institute for Environmental Research and Education

Examination Of Cooperative Extension As A Bridging Organization To Enhance Cross-Boundary Collaborative Water Management, Mark E. Burbach, Stephanie M. Kennedy, Weston M. Eaton, Kathryn J. Brasier, Daran R. Rudnick, Walt Whitmer

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We explored stakeholders’ familiarity with, trust of, perceived competence of, and shared vision with Cooperative Extension on water-related issues in two states to determine the degree to which Extension is positioned to be an effective bridging organization. Results of surveys in Nebraska and Pennsylvania showed that, overall, neither agricultural producers nor non-farm households were very familiar with Extension. However, both stakeholder groups perceived Extension to be trustworthy, competent, and have similar goals on water-related issues. Extension should renew efforts to bolster its familiarity among these groups to enhance its effectiveness as a bridging organization.

Fire And Mammal Herbivory On Arthropods In The Protected Savannas: A Systematic Review, Ludzula Mukwevho, Mduduzi Ndlovu, Frank Chidawanyika

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Protected areas in the savannas are key global reserves for biological diversity, including arthropods. Fire and mammal herbivory disrupts the diversity of biological organisms that alternately affects the functioning of the ecosystem. The study presents a global synthesis review of arthropod responses to varying intensities of fires and mammal herbivory in the protected savannas. We hypothesise that the intensity of predetermined fires and mammal herbivory has cascading impacts on abundance, species richness and diversity of terrestrial arthropods in the protected savannas. A minimum selection criteria was used to collate relevant literature from electronic databases of previous studies performed in the …

Governance And Innovation In Plastic Waste Management: The Case Of Japan, Minoo Tehrani, Yu Cui

Business Faculty Publications

This study investigates plastic waste management, focusing on Japan. The volume of plastic waste in Japan is more than eight million tons, and less than a quarter of the plastic waste is subjected to recycling. Considering that Japan is an archipelago consisting of a combination of four large islands and numerous smaller ones, plastic waste that enters the ocean poses significant threats to marine life, birds, other living beings, and beach pollution. This research explores the underlying factors that have made Japan one of the highest users of plastic. In addition, this study evaluates different strategies that are utilized in …

Green Cities Conference 2025--Program Booklet, Minoo Tehrani

Business Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The City Of Sunbury Cemetery Mapping & 1936 Flood Research, Sophia M. Martinez, Fehr A. Gillett, Ben J. Faxon, Sarah M. Sanfield

Final Reports in ENST 411: Environmental Community Projects

The City of Sunbury Cemetery Mapping & 1936 Flood Research Project was a community-driven effort to restore lost historical records of the Sunbury cemetery and to understand the context of how these records were originally lost. This project was completed as a partnership between the City of Sunbury government and four undergraduate environmental studies/sciences students in Bucknell University's ENST 411 Environmental Community Projects course. In this project, we used Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping technology, historical research, and volunteer engagement to create a comprehensive digital record of the cemetery. The goal of this project was to preserve Sunbury’s rich history …

Energy Equity In India’S Renewable Energy Transition: A Policy Design Agenda, Aritra Chakrabarty

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

India’s transition to renewable energy has prioritized large-scale, grid-based electrification, often overlooking energy equity, particularly in rural communities. Many households would benefit more from decentralized solutions than from grid extension, yet current policies neither guarantee equitable access nor address pre-existing social and economic inequalities in energy distribution. This dissertation examines the sensitivity of India’s renewable energy policies to energy equity, with a specific focus on gender equity in rural last-mile connectivity. The study is guided by the fundamental question: How can implementation of solar energy program alleviate the lives of rural communities? Using a mixed-method approach that combines policy …

Predicting Monthly Weather Anomalies In Ireland: A Comparative Study Of Machine Learning And Deep Learning Models., Fiona Behan

ICT

Abstract

This study investigates the application of statistical, machine learning, and deep learning methods to detect monthly weather anomalies in Ireland between 1960-2024. Climate variability is intensifying globally, increasing the urgency for accurate detection of unusual weather events. Using publicly available data from Met Eireann provided by the CSO PxStat Open Data Portal, the research applied comprehensive preprocessing including Bayesian Ridge iterative imputation, temporal and seasonal feature engineering, and ensemble statistical anomaly labelling based on z-score, interquartile range, and rolling residual analysis. Four models were developed and evaluated: Isolation Forest, XGBoost, Long Short Term Memory networks, and Gated Recurrent Units, …

Find My Friends: Location-Sharing Ideologies And Peer Surveillance Practices, Nayla Dayal

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the use of Find My Friends in the context of the Claremont Colleges. Students choose to location-share under initial rhetorical justifications of social reciprocity, and community-orientedness, and peer-safety. Drawing from ethnographic interviews conducted with users at the colleges, I argue that the infrastructure of Find My Friends in conjunction with the social and physical proximities of the Claremont environment creates a distinctive condition where users are subject to what I term as a “virtual, neoliberal, and participatory panopticon.” Here, users are seemingly empowered through the application’s neutralizing collapse of reciprocity and hierarchy that are seen in conventional …

Minnesota School Boards Association Communications Internship, Anna Houston

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

My internship at Minnesota School Boards Association allowed me to gain more experience within the communications field. This internship allowed me to see how current communications professionals are working within the non-profit sector that isn’t directly related to environmental matters. It was beneficial to learn from these experts while improving on my hard and soft skills within the communications field. This will help show future employers that I didn’t just study communications, but I actively practiced this work within the communications field. The Minnesota School Boards Association is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1920 in St. Peter MN. The …

Landscape Intactness As A Necessary Component Of Multiple-Use And Sustained-Yield Management Of Bureau Of Land Management Public Lands, Matthew S. Dietz, Alison C. Flint, R. Travis Belote

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Interrogating Marine Plastics Pollution Regulations: The Intended Roles Of The Global Plastics Treaty, Ndubuisi Augustine Nwafor

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Post-Purdue Landscape Of Consensual Third-Party Releases Through Contract Law, Kaori Nagase

American University Law Review

In Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., the Supreme Court invalidated non-consensual third-party releases in Chapter 11 bankruptcy plans. In doing so, however, the Court left open the question of what constitutes valid consent to a release. This Comment argues that lower courts must now require a higher threshold of affirmative consent—particularly in mass-tort bankruptcies involving highly culpable non-debtors. In light of Purdue’s implication that third-party releases are anchored in contract law principles, this Comment suggests that courts should evaluate what constitutes adequate consideration for a release.

In The Kingdom Of The Thunder Dragon: Happiness, History, And Environment In A Changing Bhutan, Betsy Bolton

English Literature Faculty Works

Landlocked, mountainous, and surrounded by global giants India and China, Bhutan has provided remarkable leadership on both climate action and human happiness, despite its pre-2023 status as a least-developed nation. Bhutan was the first country to be internationally recognized as carbon neutral; it is also the birthplace of “Gross National Happiness” (GNH), a pointed alternative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a means of measuring the success of national policies in promoting citizens’ wellbeing. Yet Bhutan has also been a site of ethnic conflict, with roughly tens of thousands people displaced into refugee camps in the 1990s and eventually resettled …

Puerto Rico’S Grand Wyndham Hotel Río Mar, The Methods They Use To Protect Leatherback Sea Turtle Nests, And My Own Findings On These Nests, Christopher Thillet

Theses & ETDs

For a very long time, leatherback sea turtles have been harmed in many ways by ecological damage caused by humans, especially their nests. Despite this, it is also humans who have been trying their best to undo these wrongs by working to protect the environment around the areas they have constructed. This thesis serves as a reflection that will provide information on what leatherback sea turtles are and the many things that are harming them worldwide, as well as the information that the hotels of Puerto Rico have collected to help further the study surrounding the many effects that people …

Food Deserts: How To Make Them Green, Minoo Tehrani, Andreas Rathgeber, Lawrence Fulton, Bryan Schmutz

Business Faculty Publications

Despite tremendous progress in addressing food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition are still widespread across the globe. Different factors, such as low levels of income and education, lack of access to food markets and transportation, high unemployment and population rates, and abandoned homes in a neighborhood, are among the factors that have been attributed to the creation of food deserts in emerging and developed countries. Some of the leading causes of death in the U.S. are heart attack, obesity, and diabetes. These major causes of death have a higher rate among the Black, Latin, and Hispanic populations. Access to healthy and …

Mangroves: A Lesson On Modeling Changing Shorelines, Willa Skye

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson is an overview of storm barriers, specifically mangroves and how they maintain shorelines. It is meant to offer a visual experience of coastline protection and provide a background for deeper understanding about intertidal zones and their conservation. Students will spend time creating a solution to a flooding problem by making a mock coast and storm barrier. To wrap-up the lesson, students will pair up, then reflect on their model and then individually write or draw their takeaways.