Digital Commons Network^™

Architecture And Agency For Equity In Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, Lisa M. Campbell, Robin Fail, Rebecca Horan, Leslie Acton, Jeffrey E. Blackwatters

Faculty Publications

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (Ocean Decade) bring increased attention to various aspects of ocean governance, including equity. One of the Ocean Decade's identified challenges is to develop a sustainable and equitable ocean economy, but questions arise about how to conceptualize the multiple dimensions of equity in an ocean context. These questions become more complex as activities move away from coastal ecosystems and communities into off-shore Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), where ocean resources are recognized simultaneously as unowned/open access and as common heritage. In this paper, …

Valley-Floor Snowfall In Taylor Valley, Antarctica, From 1995 To 2017: Spring, Summer And Autumn, Madeline E. Myers, Peter T. Doran, Krista F. Myers

Faculty Publications

We present an analysis of the 20 year snowfall dataset in Taylor Valley and the results of a new snow cover monitoring study. Snowfall has been measured at four sites in Taylor Valley from 1995 to 2017. We focus on valley-floor snowfall when wind does not exceed 5 m s-1, and we exclude winter from our analysis due to poor data quality. Snowfall averaged 11 mm water equivalent (w.e.) from 1995 to 2017 across all stations and ranged from 1 to 58 mm w.e. Standard deviations ranged from 3 to 17 mm w.e., highlighting the strong interannual variability of snowfall …

Glaciernet2: A Hybrid Multi-Model Learning Architecture For Alpine Glacier Mapping, Zhiyuan Xie, Umesh K. Haritashya, Vijayan K. Asari, Michael P. Bishop, Jeffrey S. Kargel, Theus Aspiras

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In recent decades, climate change has significantly affected glacier dynamics, resulting in mass loss and an increased risk of glacier-related hazards including supraglacial and proglacial lake development, as well as catastrophic outburst flooding. Rapidly changing conditions dictate the need for continuous and detailed ob-servations and analysis of climate-glacier dynamics. Thematic and quantitative information regarding glacier geometry is fundamental for understanding climate forcing and the sensitivity of glaciers to climate change, however, accurately mapping debris-cover glaciers (DCGs) is notoriously difficult based upon the use of spectral information and conventional machine-learning techniques. The objective of this research is to improve upon an …

"Just Ice" For Bourbon: The Need For Gis In International Protection Of America's Beloved Spirit, Haley Scott

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The term "bourbon" has become increasingly popular in markets all over the globe. The popularity of the bourbon trend has been exploited for both labelling liquors and describing nonalcoholic products. Bourbon has several separate definitions, usually differing on the issue of the geographical scope of the spirit's production. The bourbon liquor industry has experienced periods of significant downturn followed by periods of explosive revival, motivated mainly by foreign interest, from countries such as Japan, in the product In the 1970s, Japanese interest in whisky and US bourbon facilitated a resurgence of the then-struggling US bourbon industry. In 2018, production of …

Three Essays In Health Economics, Mir Nahid Mahmud

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation comprises three empirical essays. The first essay estimates the long-term health and socioeconomic impact of early life nutritional deficit using the Bangladesh Famine from 1974-1975 as a natural experiment. The second essay investigates if pubic health insurance coverage of “ immigrant children¬” changed as a result of the lift of the “five-year-ban” in the Children Health Insurance Reauthorization Act-2009. The final chapter estimates the relationship between child health conditions and maternal employment using conventional econometric models. To expand the analysis and contribute to the literature, I estimate the relationship by implementing a Multiple Indicator Multiple Causes Model (MIMIC).

Presto : Fast And Effective Group Closeness Maximization, Baibhav L. Rajbhandari

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Given a graph and an integer k, the goal of group closeness maximization is to find, among all possible sets of k vertices (called seed sets), a set that has the highest group closeness centrality. Existing techniques for this NP-hard problem strive to quickly find a seed set with a high, but not necessarily the highest centrality.

Spatial Diffusion Of Immigrants And Children's Academic Performance In The United States, Yuanfei Li

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation explores immigrant children’s academic performance in both established and non-established immigrant destinations in the United States. Integrating data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, the Stanford Education Data Archive, American Community Survey, and several other sources, it uses Ordinary Least Squares regression and multilevel modeling strategies relating family, school and neighborhood contexts to students’ performance in a standardized math test. With a typology of immigrant destinations defined at the county level, it compares immigrant and non-immigrant students within each type of immigrant destination as well as between immigrant students residing in different destinations. Results show that …

Human-Wildlife Coexistence With Coyotes In Los Angeles County, Ca And Cook County, Il, Alan Eapen

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The expansion of coyotes (Canis latrans) into urban and suburban areas where human concentration is high has led to human-coyote conflicts often leading to increased management actions against coyotes. Recently in Los Angeles and Cook Counties, municipalities have developed coyote management plans to foster human-wildlife coexistence in an effort to reduce conflict, an emerging concept that promotes the cohabitation of humans and animals in shared landscapes. The thesis investigates coyote management plans and policies concerning human-coyote interactions in Los Angeles and Cook Counties to address human-wildlife. Using a case study analysis of Los Angeles and Cook Counties, this study analyzed …

Relative Effects Of Self-Paced And Machine-Paced Learning Under Computer-Based Training, Eunju Choi

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of a self-paced instruction versus machine-paced instruction using a computerized format. Instructional applications such as Programmed Instruction and Computer-Based Instruction have long touted the benefits of self-pacing (e.g., teaching machines, Personalized System of Instruction), but direct comparisons of different pacing types are lacking. Some preliminary research suggests that self-pacing may be prone to distraction by competing reinforcers and overall poor self-management of time. As such, it may be possible that machine-paced lessons (based on optimal timings) may foster better learning while retaining other beneficial features of CBI (interactivity, flexibility of …

Optimization Of Solar-Coal Hybridization For Low Solar Augmentation, Aaron T. Bame, Joseph Furner, Ian Hoag, Kasra Mohammadi, Kody Powell, Brian D. Iverson

Faculty Publications

This work presents a process to determine the preliminary optimal configuration of a concentrating solar power-coal hybrid power plant with low solar augmentation, and is demonstrated on a regenerative steam Rankine cycle coal power plant in Castle Dale, UT, USA (average DNI of 542 W m⁻²). A representative plant model is developed and validated against published data for a coal power plant. The simplifications that lead to the representative model from a coal power plant model include combining multiple feedwater heaters, combining turbines, and using a mass-average calculation for extraction steam properties. Comparing net power generation and boiler …

Competition And Innovation: The Breakup Of Ig Farben, Felix Poege

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship between competition and innovation is difficult to disentangle, as exogenous variation in market structure is rare. The 1952 breakup of Germany’s leading chemical company, IG Farben, represents such a disruption. After the Second World War, the Allies occupying Germany imposed the breakup because of IG Farben’s importance for the German war economy instead of standard antitrust concerns. In technology areas where the breakup reduced concentration, patenting increased strongly, driven by domestic firms unrelated to IG Farben. An analysis of patent texts shows that an increased propensity to patent does not drive the effect. Descriptively, IG Farben’s successors increased …

A Phenomenological Study Of Contributing Factors And Common Trends Related To Teacher Attrition In Western North Carolina, Preston Clarke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A phenomenological approach was used to identify contributing factors and common trends related teacher attrition by conducting interviews with teachers who decided to exit a North Carolina School District located in Western North Carolina. A qualitative approach allowed the researcher to gain valuable insight into the decision-making process of the 15 research participants. Data collection involved conducting one on one telephone interviews with participants by asking a series of open-ended questions that allowed for probing and follow-up questions. Analysis of researcher notes, evaluation of textual data produced by interviews, and observations allowed the qualitative investigator to identify emerging themes and …

When The Costs Outweigh The Benefits: Examining Variations In Nulliparous, Term, Singleton, Vertex And Elective Cesarean Delivery Rates Across The United States, 2016-2020, Kathleen Tatro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overutilization of cesarean deliveries is a major public health issue in the United States (U.S.). The rates of cesarean deliveries have increased substantially from the mid 1990s. Low-risk, defined as nulliparous, term, singleton, vertex (NTSV) pregnancies with no medical indication of need, and elective cesarean deliveries have been implicated as drivers of these increases. Elective cesarean deliveries are NTSV cesarean deliveries in which no trial of labor was attempted. There is a lack of clear rationale as to the noted increases in cesarean delivery rates as the evidence shows that these procedures provide no additional health benefits to mothers …

Flora Of Doe Mountain Recreation Area, Johnson County, Tennessee, Benjamin Mccullough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A botanical inventory of Doe Mountain Recreation Area (DMRA) in northeastern Tennessee was conducted to help guide conservation-based management. A total of 484 species were found in DMRA, comprising 94 families, and 285 genera, 10 species listed in the state rare plant list, and 76 exotic species. Two species, Liatris virgata and Lycopodiella inundata, were new state records. Water in the Lycopodiella seep was an order of magnitude more acid than at other sites. An analysis of the wildland-urban interface showed that only 13% of the area was classified as uninhabited. The inventory-invasion index, introduced to quantify the relative …

Mississippi Modernism: The River Valley And Race In American Culture, 1892-1945, William C. Palmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mississippi Modernism looks to the Mississippi River Valley of the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first few decades of the twentieth century to analyze the ways individuals expressed and determined their experience in the changing world. By engaging with theories of modernity from Marshall Berman and the Black modernism of Houston A. Baker, Jr. this work proposes the Mississippi watershed as a region where individuals indulge in the processes of modernism remaking the environments, both urban and rural, surrounding them. By thinking about the “dry” and “wet” valleys envisioned by European settlers as Christopher Morris terms it, …

Using Multidisciplinary Analysis To Develop Adaptation Options Against Extreme Coastal Floods, Xinmeng Shan, Jun Wang, Jiahong Wen, Hengzhi Hu, Lei Wang, Jie Yin, Mengya Li

Faculty Publications

Long-term flood risk adaptation and decision making are complex because the future is full of deep uncertainties. Flexibility and robustness can be used to deal with future uncertainty. This study developed an integrated modeling framework that extends previous studies to the spatial domain to assess the future flood risks and the cost and benefit of three adaptation measures for four types of buildings in Shanghai. Real options analysis (ROA) and dynamic adaptive policy pathways (DAPP) were integrated to develop a dynamic adaptation pathway and identify robust adaptation options. The results show that: (1) Sea level rise and land subsidence will …

Digital Archival Literacy In The Classroom, Rebecca Fitzsimmons, Elliott Kuecker

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Archival literacy has become a popular mode of literacy in the last ten years, given that archival research is not the exclusive purview of historians. Given the amount of open collections and exhibits, the possibility of teaching archival literacy skills is more accessible than ever. Importantly, archival literacy asks us to critically read against the common narrative that archival objects are pure evidence and archivists are neutral agents. Our presentation describes the importance of digital archival literacy and provides examples of implementation in classes, ad hoc workshops, and community engagement. We emphasize that all knowledge is a synthesis of various …

On The Rise: Asian American Women Elected To The Massachusetts House Of Representatives, Katie Mai, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Institute For Asian American Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Comprised of 160 State Representatives and 40 State Senators, the bicameral Massachusetts Legislature serves all residents and communities of the Commonwealth yet there has been limited racial, ethnic, and gender diversity reflected in the membership of the legislature for most of its existence. While Massachusetts has a substantial and rapidly growing Asian American population, there has historically been very limited representation by Asian American women in the Massachusetts Legislature, as documented by the Asian American Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts1, yet 2011 represented a turning point. This brief focuses on the narratives of five Asian American women who have …

Habitats And Heritage: An Analysis Of The Natural And Cultural Resource Management Of The South Carolina Lowcountry, Patricia Ploehn

All Theses

The South Carolina Lowcountry is replete with cultural landscapes, each one featuring a unique collection of natural and cultural resources. These resources are valuable for their environmental and cultural heritage, a heritage which defines and benefits the communities who call the Lowcountry home. This study presents a comparative analysis of public and private land management organizations operating in the South Carolina Lowcountry. The purpose of this study is to compare how public and private organizations are currently managing natural and cultural resources on cultural landscapes that they protect and oversee. The history of federal and private land management was investigated …

Generating Sex Trafficking Networks From Text Documents, Maria Diaz

All Theses

Qualitative coding is a long and strenuous process that requires a well-skilled investigator. Natural language processing techniques have made leaps and bounds as far as usability and application domain, although it does not work for every task. In this work, we have created a natural language processing framework to help qualitative coders automatically obtain the nodes and node arcs from federal case files, dockets, and indictments within a sex trafficking network. The produced nodes and arcs allows us to perform network modeling by providing us with the information needed to create network structures that can then be used for interdiction …

Prototype For A Rural Primary Healthcare Center In Paraguay, Maria Virginia Matiauda Schneider

All Theses

Primary Health Care Centers in Paraguay are the architectural settings for the first level of access to healthcare in Paraguay, providing health promotion, pre- vention, diagnosis, treatment, and health education. These centers are built based on four standard typologies, of which two consist of permanent health- care facilities and two of satellite or mobile units. Standard designs for these centers typically consist of residential scaled buildings, with spaces linked by a single central circulation corridor and lacking adequate attention to ventilation and daylight.

The public healthcare system in Paraguay is organized around four levels of care, and the complexity and …

Moderate, Overlooked Weather Events And Local Labor Markets, Michael Ellis

All Theses

A substantial amount of research exists on the economic effects of natural disasters and extreme weather, as well as comparatively minor variations in daily weather conditions such as precipitation, temperature, and wind. I construct a sample of over a million storms that range from intense daily weather conditions to extreme weather. I analyze written descriptions of the damages caused by many of these storms to identify 93,743 weather events within the sample that appear to be underemphasized in the existing economic literature. These storms cause more damage and disruptions to commerce than 63.5% of storms in the sample, yet do …

Assessment In Undergraduate Research, Jill Singer, Daniel Weiler, Bridget Zimmerman, Sean Fox, Elizabeth L. Ambos

Earth Sciences Faculty Publications

This chapter focuses on assessment as an integral element of the continued success and sustainability of undergraduate research (UR) and describes the EvaluateUR method, a proven approach to assessing the skills and competencies of UR students, which also contributes directly to student learning. The chapter concludes with brief remarks on the assessment of course-based UR and two projects now in progress that are adapting the EvaluateUR method to these assessments.

Through The Heart Of The City: Interstates And Black Geographies In Urban America, Airic Hughes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Federal urban renewal projects changed the landscape of numerous American cities throughoutthe twentieth century. Many of these projects worked cohesively in tandem with discriminatory urban planning policies such as redlining. The conclusions of this project demonstrate how U.S. Interstate 630 (I-630) intentionally re-segregated Arkansas' capital city, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 national desegregation order and the infamous desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. I further contend that I-630 was constructed using the racialized language and tactics of urban renewal and was fundamental to improving Little Rock’s national reputation by purging the city's social memory and legacy …

Changes Of Winter Severity In Arkansas During 1901-2100, Christian Garcia

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to quantify the winter severity in a way that was reproduceable and easy to understand. The Accumulated Winter Severity Seasonal Index (AWSSI) was chosen for this reason and was used to quantify winter severity by season across the state of Arkansas. The variables that go into the AWSSI calculation are maximum daily temperature, minimum daily temperature, daily snowfall, and daily snow depth. When the snowfall and snow depth were missing, they can be estimated using daily temperature and precipitation. Then the estimated snowfall and snow depth can be subsequently used to quantify the winter …

Examining The Intersection Of Cultural Competence And Classroom Management Self-Efficacy In Northwest Arkansas K-6 Teachers, Bonnie Culp King

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to examine the relationship between Northwest Arkansas K-6 teachers’ cultural competence and classroom management self-efficacy. Multiple linear regression will be the quantitative approach used for analyzing K-6 teachers’ self-reported data. Valid and reliable instruments will be used to measure the concepts as operationalized for this study. Cultural competence will be measured using the “Multicultural Teaching Competency Scale” and classroom management self-efficacy will be measured using the “Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale.” Demographic information will be collected to control for two variables: a teacher’s years of experience in teaching and race/ethnicity. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics will be …

Barriers To Care For Poststroke Visual Deficits In Alberta, Canada, Kiran Pohar Manhas, Karim F. Damji, Katelyn Brehon, Jennis Jiang, Peter Faris, Fiona Costello

Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences

Poststroke visual impairment (VI) negatively affects rehabilitation potential and quality of life for stroke survivors. In this cross-sectional observational study, stroke survivors and providers were surveyed to quantify perspectives regarding care for poststroke VI in Alberta, Canada (n = 46 survivors; n = 87 providers). Few patients (35%) felt prepared to cope with VI at the time of discharge from acute stroke and inpatient rehabilitation settings. Less than 25% of stroke survivors, and <16% of providers, felt referral processes were adequate. 95.2% of providers and 82% of stroke survivors advocated for a provincial clinical pathway to improve care quality for poststroke VI.

Receptor Tyrosine Kinase (Rtk) Targeting In Pediatric High-Grade Glioma And Diffuse Midline Glioma: Pre-Clinical Models And Precision Medicine., Kallen Schwark, Dana Messinger, Jessica R. Cummings, Joshua Bradin, Abed Kawakibi, Clarissa M. Babila, Samantha Lyons, Sunjong Ji, Rodrigo T. Cartaxo, Seongbae Kong, Evan Cantor, Carl Koschmann, Viveka Nand Yadav

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Pediatric high-grade glioma (pHGG), including both diffuse midline glioma (DMG) and non-midline tumors, continues to be one of the deadliest oncologic diagnoses (both henceforth referred to as "pHGG"). Targeted therapy options aimed at key oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) drivers using small-molecule RTK inhibitors has been extensively studied, but the absence of proper in vivo modeling that recapitulate pHGG biology has historically been a research challenge. Thankfully, there have been many recent advances in animal modeling, including Cre-inducible transgenic models, as well as intra-uterine electroporation (IUE) models, which closely recapitulate the salient features of human pHGG tumors. Over 20% of …

Chasing The Light, Nadia Alexis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chasing the Light is a young adult novel-in-verse is a 16-year-old Haitian American teen photographer and survivor of dating violence who is a lover of myth and folklore, who is good at keeping secrets, and who is hungry for freedom. Her parents want her to follow the traditional path of going to college and pursuing a well-paying career like becoming a lawyer or a doctor. She wants to be free to uncover truths about her newly single self and to make her mark as a young artist aspiring to go to college to study photography so she could become a …

Bridging Souths: Interdisciplinarity And Knowledge Production In Southern Studies, Matthew David Streets

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the viability of southern studies, a regional studies project on the study of the U.S. South, as an academic field of study and institutionalized site of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary knowledge production. Southern studies has undergone numerous turns and paradigm shifts since its institutionalization in the 1970s. These ontological, epistemological, and methodological developments have reoriented the objectives of interdisciplinary knowledge production. Despite the present permeability of disciplinary boundaries, the institutional structure and its racial, capitalist, and disciplinary hierarchies hinder communication and collaboration across disciplines and fields and between the “ivory tower” and “real world.” Understanding the impact …