Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Ecological Aspects Of The Music Of John Luther Adams, David Arie Shimoni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The composer John Luther Adams envisions his role as one who re-imagines and re-creates relationships with other human and non-human beings through music. This dissertation consists of an examination of songbirdsongs, Earth and the Great Weather, In the White Silence, Strange and Sacred Noise, The Place Where You Go to Listen, and Inuksuit to determine whether, and how, Adams succeeds in re-creating these relationships.

In the Introduction various means of connecting music and the natural world are reviewed, a semiotic and ecomusicological framework for analysis is established, and a listening typology is suggested. In the following chapters, analysis of …

The Theoretical And Psychological Foundations Of Care In Environmental Ethics, Rachel Fedock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I investigate the phenomenon of care, provide some of the theoretical and psychological framework for the ethics of care, and apply this framework to environmental issues. The neglected dimensions of care I explore are: the emotions of care, care as a virtue, and the caring person, respectively, while constructing possible conceptions of in what each dimension consists. I argue for the necessity of sympathy and concern within the ethics of care, while arguing against the necessity of empathy. Next, I explore the virtue of care as an ideal, where emotions, desires, reasoning, motive, duty and action all play an important …

A Recipe For The Estimation Of Information Flow In A Dynamical System, Deniz Gencaga, Kevin H. Knuth, William B. Rossow

Publications and Research

Information-theoretic quantities, such as entropy and mutual information (MI), can be used to quantify the amount of information needed to describe a dataset or the information shared between two datasets. In the case of a dynamical system, the behavior of the relevant variables can be tightly coupled, such that information about one variable at a given instance in time may provide information about other variables at later instances in time. This is often viewed as a flow of information, and tracking such a flow can reveal relationships among the system variables. Since the MI is a symmetric quantity; an asymmetric …

Comparing Three Methods For Estimating Ozone Depleting Substance Substitute Greenhouse Gases: Case Study Of The New York City Region, Wallace A. Murray Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis evaluates the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) method for estimating emissions from one source, Ozone Depleting Substances Substitutes (ODS substitutes) by comparing results for the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area (NYC-MSA) with results from two other methodologies. The EPA’s method utilizes population data and GDP data to estimate and geographically allocate emissions, with little regard for the geographies of industrial activity. The two alternative methods use data for industrial employment and activity to provide results for comparison and perhaps a more accurate accounting and allocation of emissions throughout the NYC-MSA.

Integrated Hydrologic Land Surface State Climate Indicators, Brian Lamb

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Intra- And Inter-Seasonal Variability Of Supra-Glacial 1 Streams And Lakes Over The West Greenland Ice Sheet 2 From High-Resolution Satellite Optical Data, Michael Gregory Brown

Dissertations and Theses

The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is one of the largest glacial ice masses on Earth, second only to the Antarctic ice sheet. The surface hydrology of the GrIS plays a crucial role on the surface energy and mass balance budgets of the ice sheet as a whole. Surface water, known as supra-glacial water, is seasonally found in the ablation zone and feeds the en-glacial and sub-glacial hydrological environments of the ice sheet. The spatial distribution of surface streams is poorly understood and their temporal variability is (to our knowledge) unknown. One of the reasons for the lack of knowledge on …

Toxins In Newtown Creek, Burl Yearwood, Cho Cho Aung, Ridima Pradhan, Jennifer Vance

Publications and Research

Newtown Creek is a 3.5 mile river which empties into the East River in New York, United States. The river runs the boundary between the Queens and Brooklyn Burroughs. A thriving sight of industry, this river has been the location of much pollution for over a century. Battered by oil spills and oil seepage, raw sewage, trash carried by rain water, cement, animal fat, and a 15 meter sludge on the bottom of the riverbed, Newtown Creek is one of the most polluted waterways in the United States. In this article, data for nitrate, phosphate, lead, copper, dissolved iron, and …

Early Detection And Monitoring Of Malaria, Md Zahidur Rahman, Leonid Roytman, Abdelhamid Kadik, Howard Miller, Dilara A. Rosy

Publications and Research

Global Earth Observation Systems of Systems (GEOSS) are bringing vital societal benefits to people around the globe. In this research article, we engage undergraduate students in the exciting area of space exploration to improve the health of millions of people globally. The goal of the proposed research is to place students in a learning environment where they will develop their problem solving skills in the context of a world crisis (e.g., malaria). Malaria remains one of the greatest threats to public health, particularly in developing countries. The World Health Organization has estimated that over one million die of Malaria each …

Wetchimp-Wsl: Intercomparison Of Wetland Methane Emissions Models Over West Siberia, T. J. Bohn, J. R. Melton, A. Ito, T. Kleinen, R. Spahni, B. D. Stocker, B. Zhang, X. Zhu, R. Schroeder, M. V. Glagolev, S. Maksyutov, V. Brovkin, G. Chen, S. N. Denisov, A. V. Eliseev, A. Gallego-Sala, K. C. Mcdonald, M. A. Rawlins, W. J. Riley, Z. M. Subin, H. Tian, Q. Zhuang, J. O. Kaplan

Publications and Research

Wetlands are the world’s largest natural source of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The strong sensitivity of methane emissions to environmental factors such as soil temperature and moisture has led to concerns about potential positive feedbacks to climate change. This risk is particularly relevant at high latitudes, which have experienced pronounced warming and where thawing permafrost could potentially liberate large amounts of labile carbon over the next 100 years. However, global models disagree as to the magnitude and spatial distribution of emissions, due to uncertainties in wetland area and emissions per unit area and a scarcity of in situ observations. …