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Earth Science Minor, Geology/Geography

Program Revisions/Additions

No abstract provided.

The State And Cannabis : What Is Success? A Comparative Analysis Of Cannabis Policy In The United States Of America, Uruguay, And Canada, Gideon C. Cunningham

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Globally, the policies that states engage in concerning the cultivation, production, distribution, and sale of recreational cannabis in the 21st century is changing rapidly. Three countries have now legalized, regulated, and implemented recreational cannabis frameworks, albeit in starkly different ways. These countries are The United States of America, Uruguay, and Canada. This research identifies the contradictory nature of cannabis policy goals and compares the similarities and differences of each countries’ recreational cannabis framework. It proposes a theory of understanding the contradictory nature of creating cannabis policies post-legalization and presents a framework from which to analyze the success of individual cannabis …

China’S Legal Environment For Domestic Ngos: Standardized Policies For Greater Party-State Control Over Civil Society, Kelly E. Tursic

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines one angle of state-society relations in authoritarian states through the lens of Chinese nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their legal environment. While grassroots organizations have not prompted political liberalization in China, they have not been entirely co-opted by the party-state either. Through an examination of policy changes, a study of 120 organizations, and a case study of a non-profit incubator, this thesis explores whether the political environment for China’s domestic NGOs varies by geographic region and issue area. The findings suggest there is not significant variation as the party-state has implemented standardized policies for increased control over civil …

Benzotriazole And Tolytriazole Analysis In Select Surface Waters Near Wilmington Air Park, Lee A. Raska

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Previous investigations into the presence of benzotriazole (BTZ) and corresponding analogs done in early 2019 found elevated levels near the Wilmington Air Park in Wilmington, Ohio. The analogs detected were 4-methyl-1H-benzotriazole and 5-methyl-1H-benzotriazole: known together as tolytriazole (TTZ). BTZ and TTZ are emerging environmental contaminants of concern that are often found in aircraft de-icing solutions, anti-icing solutions and detergents. The Wilmington Air Park has two facilities used to pre-treat runoff water before its subsequent release into surrounding streams. Three sites were chosen: Lytle Creek, Indian Run, and Cowan Creek. For the 2019 and 2019/2020 investigative projects, Cowan Creek was designated …

A Comprehensive Audit Of Professional Development For K-12 School Leaders In The Commonwealth Of Virginia, Melissa Davis Hill, Melisa J. Naumann, Timothy M. Tillman, Major R. Warner Jr.

Doctor of Education Capstones

The intent of this paper is to provide a mixed-methods audit of professional development provided to K-12 school leadership in Virginia's diverse landscape to include identification of providers, funding, effectiveness, and expectations.

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, geographical, political, and socio-economical differences across 132 school divisions cause variability in leaders' experiences with professional development. A mixed-methods approach was used, including a review of current literature, an online survey, virtual interviews, and virtual focus group discussions. This data collection results in a comprehensive audit of professional development provided to school leaders in Virginia's diverse landscape. The study defines effective professional development …

Hmong In The Twin Cities: Diaspora Experiences And Personal Identities, Anisha Rajbhandary

Geography Honors Projects

Asian Americans as a whole have been portrayed as “model minorities” due to their higher degree of socioeconomic success compared to the average population. However, this “model minority” stereotype primarily based upon the voluntary immigration experiences of East and South Asians with greater socio-economic resources, hardly accounts for the immigration experiences of other Asian groups such as Hmong Americans. Utilizing extensive literature review, first person interviews and collected survey data, this paper explores Hmong diaspora and identity in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, analyzing how Hmong Americans reconcile with the stereotypes set for Asian “model minorities” and construct their own …

Peeling Apple: Antitrust Standing & Intermediary Defendants, John E. Lopatka

Faculty Scholarship

When market intermediaries unlawfully acquire market power, vertically related market participants may sue under the antitrust laws to recover damages. Their ability to recover depends upon an intricate set of doctrines that define private standing, including the indirect-purchaser rules set down by the Supreme Court most notably in Illinois Brick. In Apple Inc. v. Pepper, the Court decided the application of the indirect-purchaser rules to a particular kind of intermediary, a platform in a two-sided market. The Article explores private antitrust standing doctrines as they apply to market intermediaries, using Apple to frame the exposition. The Court there held that …

Excerpt Of Law And Anti-Blackness, Michele Goodwin

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Professor Michele Goodwin’s essay here (and the article from which it came, to be published in full in our Winter issue) explicitly identifies the development of American law as a project of cementing racial caste. This piece is a call for conversation and asks us all to consider: “How has the failure to acknowledge and address the carnage and prurience of America’s racial origin story impacted life today?” For 26 volumes, we have attempted to answer that question. In publishing this story in this issue, we are excited to be joined by our peers in that effort.

The Effect Of Property Tax Relief On K-12 Education Expenditures In North Dakota, Kole Allen Nichols

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

North Dakota implemented two pieces of legislation in 2009 and 2013 to reduce property tax burdens. These policies encouraged local school districts to lower their property-tax mill rates and provided intergovernmental grants to school districts to replace the missing revenue. In this study I examine the effect of this change in policy on total school district expenditures. I employ panel econometric methods to analyze the effect that these property tax relief interventions had on county education expenditures in North Dakota. Though there were mixed results for the effect of the 2009 legislation, this study finds that the property tax relief …

The United States And Brazil - Spatial And Logistical Interdependence For Soybean Shipments To China, Gwen Marie Scheresky

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Analyzing the United States/Brazil competition for market share of Chinese soybean imports requires a detailed, stochastic approach. Using data from 2013 to 2019, this thesis attempts to model and explain the change in market share for each producing country as different variables fluctuate or enter the equation. Using five origins in each country, the PNW, USG, Santos, Paranaguá, and the northern arc of ports in Brazil, various transportation routes from origin to port, congestion and quality metrics, and ocean freight, a least-cost optimized Monte Carlo simulation is performed using time-series forecasting distributions for monthly variables. A distribution of outcomes for …

Nonprofit Capacity To Manage Hurricane-Pandemic Threat: Local And National Perspectives On Resilience During Covid-19, Nicole S. Hutton, Steven W. Mumford, Marina Saitgalina, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Joshua G. Behr, Rafael Diaz, John J. Kiefer

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

This paper examines nonprofits' capacity for responding to simultaneous hurricane-pandemic threat, addressing: (1) strategies nonprofits use to deliver services during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) how natural hazards may affect nonprofit roles in emergency service delivery during a pandemic. Data come from a survey of New Orleans-based nonprofits demonstrating effects of pandemic on local nonprofit service delivery, and workshops with U.S. coastal community stakeholders exploring expectations for nonprofit roles in emergency operations nationwide. Nonprofits have applied resilient strategies including virtual operations, staff reductions, and funding diversification, but vulnerabilities remain. Findings guide a research agenda for building nonprofit and community resilience.

Differences In Dui Punishments And Recidivism Between Transfers Among Municipal And District Court, Alexander Menke

Criminal Justice and Political Science

The relationship between court transfers and punishment differences, as well as changes in recidivism, have been seldomly researched. This paper adds to the body of research by comparing punishments from DUI cases heard in municipal court and DUI cases heard in district court. The differences in recidivism between the defendants whose cases were heard in municipal and district court are also compared. A systematic sample of DUI offenders from Fargo and West Fargo, North Dakota make up the experimental and control groups. The 511 non-transfer cases are analyzed against the 402 transfer cases using crosstabulations and logistic regression techniques. The …

Investigating The Subspecific Designation Of Euschistus Servus (Say) (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) Using A Combined Landmark-Based Geometric Morphometrics Approach, Vincent Aron Oliveras

Entomology

Euschistus servus is currently subdivided into two subspecies: E. s. servus and E. s. euschistoides. An intergrade population inhabits the central U.S. This study sought to reevaluate the established subspecific designations and determine whether E. servus subspecies and intergrade populations express distinct taxonomically important morphological characteristics throughout the U.S. We quantified landmark-based geometric morphometric data in conjunction with traditional morphometrics from specimens collected along a wide geographic area and used a principal component analysis to determine if there is a significant difference within the subspecies’ morphology, assessing shape between morphogroups failed to produce clusters commensurate to the E. s. servus …

Disruption Of Gender Norms To Advance Contemporary Politics: A Radical Feminist Analysis Of Efo Kodjo Mawugbe's In The Chest Of A Woman, Abigail Chrappah

English

This paper deconstructs leadership and kingship politics in the Ghanaian West-African culture as it pertains to gender. It proves that what governs the concept of the throne is unequivocally masculine and simply a game. The thesis further argues the need to encourage subversively radical methods in dealing with entrenched sexism that permeate the royal system and the current political system. Through Efo Kodjo Mawugbe's play In the Chest of a Woman, the research establishes that the concept of power in the Ghanaian traditional system is rigid and, consequently, requires unorthodox deviance to challenge gender oppression. It concludes that for women …

Global Southerners In The North, Ama Francis

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholarship contends that international law privileges nation-states in the Global North over those in the Global South. The literature primarily draws on a Westphalian conception of the North-South divide in analyzing asymmetrical issues of power in the global political economy. Given the expansion of global capitalism, however, the nation-state-based mode of analysis misses the fact that there are Global Souths in the geographic North and Global Norths in the geographic South. This Essay makes two theoretical claims.

First, it argues that racial capitalism renders expendable populations across the geographic North and South, destabilizing …

Development And Validation Of A Library For Iterative Window-Based Processing Of Geospatial Data, David Michael Schwartz

Computer Science

High-resolution spectral images and digital elevation models are widely available. With this quantity of data, it is imperative to develop fast algorithms to extract information. We present a Python library that implements a set of algorithms for aggregating data within sliding windows. The algorithms have O(log(n)) time complexity and maintain the original image resolution. They are vectorized and written with NumPy to create fast code with C-like performance. The library offers several analysis procedures, architected such that additional procedures utilizing sliding windows can easily be added. Slope, aspect, and curvature analyses exist for digital elevation models. Fractal dimensions and correlation …

Next Location Prediction Model: A Geohashed Based Recurrent Neural Network, Ali Rahim Taleqani

Computer Science

This work investigates the significance of choosing appropriate recurrent neural networks (RNNs) architecture for a spatiotemporal next location prediction framework. Dockless shared micro-mobility sharing programs provide spatial trajectory data that entails essential information for city planners and developers. The study compares (i) the variable-sized geohash tessellation and (ii) two common RNN architectures: Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU), using bike/scooter location data for Washington DC, USA. LSTM and GRU networks are used for modeling and incorporating information from spatial neighbors into the model. The study suggests that the LSTM model yields slightly better performance than the GRU …

Quantifying Carbon Sequestration For Riparian-Zone Restoration In Ecuador, Paula Carvalho De Castro

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Carbon sequestration supported by carbon pricing and carbon offset programs has the potential to mitigate the risks associated with environmental change. Riparian-zone restoration, beyond enriching degraded ecosystems, promotes carbon sequestration. With that premise, this study aims to estimate and compare how much carbon is captured and stored using six riparian-zone restoration scenarios for the Northwestern part of the Pichincha Province in Ecuador and the economic value of the respective carbon. The InVEST Carbon Storage and Carbon Sequestration Model which integrates land cover maps, carbon pools, and economic value of carbon in currency units was used to quantify the amount of …

Modern Meals And Mythology: The Los Angeles Culinary Field, Lindsay Megumi Chu

Pomona Senior Theses

Throughout history, food and our relationship with it has had numerous implications. Indeed, humans have consumed food not only as sustenance, but also as ritual and as a marker of status and social hierarchy. Though food and the dissemination of culinary practices have greatly diversified in the past century, food and the culinary methods required to make it remain relevant to our understanding of contemporary society, as popular culinary practices and trends reveal our preferences, beliefs, ideals, and aspirations. While there are numerous ways to analyze the cultural impact of food in the current era, this work focuses on food …

Evangels Of Emancipation: Missionary Activity In Postemancipation Sierra Leone, Jamaica, And The United States, Rowan Mcgarry-Williams

Pomona Senior Theses

White missionaries shaped the development of social relations and the political economies of post-emancipation Anglo-American societies. They imbued their destinations with a particular logic of freedom, stemming from a shared language of evangelicalism, liberalism, and white supremacy. For missionaries in Sierra Leone, Jamaica, and the United States, freedom meant the ability to engage in Christian worship and market relations. Freedom from Christianity or freedom from the market, however, did not factor into the missionary idea of what freedom entailed. In the face of conflict with formerly enslaved people and a hostile planter class, missionaries ultimately abandoned egalitarian and optimistic visions …

Release Roulette: The Rural-Urban Pretrial Detention Divide In Florida, Matthew Baker

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Articulation And Transfer In Tennessee Higher Education 2020 Report, Tennessee. Higher Education Commission.

Academic Programs and Workforce Reports

No abstract provided.

Tennessee Highway Safety Office Highway Safety Plan Ffy 2021, Tennessee. Department Of Safety & Homeland Security.

Highway Safety Office

No abstract provided.

The Garden In The Machine: Grace Lee Boggs’S Living For Change: An Autobiography And Detroit’S Urban-Agrarian Future, Jina B. Kim

English Language and Literature: Faculty Books

'The Garden in the Machine: Grace Lee Boggs’s Living for Change: An Autobiographyand Detroit’s Urban-Agrarian Future" is chapter two of part one: Neoimperialisms, Neoliberalisms, Necropolitics in Asian American Literature in Transition, 1996-2020: Volume 4, edited by Betsy Huang, Victor Román Mendoza

This volume examines the concerns of Asian American literature from 1996 to the present. This period was not only marked by civil unrest, terror and militarization, economic depression, and environmental abuse, but also unprecedented growth and visibility of Asian American literature. This volume is divided into four sections that plots the trajectories of, and tensions between, social challenges …

Let The Sunshine In: Floridian Felons And The Franchise, Joshua H. Winograd

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Learning While Black: How "Zero Tolerance" Policies Disproportionately Affect Black Students, Sydney Ford

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Social Behavior Of Pine Sawflies In The Genus Neodiprion, John W. Terbot Ii

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Group living is found across the animal kingdom ranging from temporary mating aggregations to complex, eusocial lifestyles. A particularly common form of group living found among insects are larval or nymphal herds. This lifestyle consists of immature insects living together and results in several proposed costs and benefits. Benefits of this lifestyle include improved ability to regulate a group’s microenvironment, more efficient use of their host, and the ability to engage in collective predator defenses. Offsetting these benefits are costs resulting from living in close proximity to conspecifics which include increased competition, greater visibility to predators, and heightened disease risks. …

The Art Of Fiction: Fact, Myth And New Knowledge On The North Australian Expedition, 1855 - 1857, Stevie Cole

Theses

This thesis determines the degree to which the North Australian Expedition, 1855–1857, contested established European fiction of the Australian frontier by systematically collecting new knowledge. It analyses the outcomes of one of the most forgotten expeditions in Australian history by interrogating the journals, charts and artworks of the explorers. In 1855, the Royal Geographical Society and the British Colonial Office sent an expedition into northern Australia under the command of Augustus Gregory. It was a region that Britain hoped would hold lucrative resources to support further economic and population development. The artist-explorer, Thomas Baines, was made second-in-command of the expedition. …

Intellectual Property As A Determinant Of Health, Ana S. Rutschman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Public health literature has long recognized the existence of determinants of health, a set of socioeconomic conditions that affect health risks and health outcomes across the world. The World Health Organization defines these determinants as “forces and systems” consisting of “factors combin[ing] together to affect the health of individuals and communities.” Frameworks relying on determinants of health have been widely adopted by countries in the global South and North alike, as well as international institutional players, several of which are direct or indirect players in transnational intellectual property (IP) policymaking. Issues raised by the implementation of IP policies, however, are …

Richmond Riverviewshed Analysis, Mounika Reddy Sudini

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

The Richmond River viewshed analysis emphasized the importance to be given to the south side of the river. In order to increase the significance of the south side thus, this plan will be focusing on the existing conditions, discusses the accessibility issues, perform viewshed analysis and create standards for access in the right – of – way.