Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Modeling Community Risk And Vulnerability To Multiple Natural Hazards: Hillsborough County, Florida, Christopher T. Emrich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multiple hazard risk and vulnerability are two topics that are at the forefront of hazards research that looks at the hazardousness ofplace. However, no definitive framework that encapsulates measures o f both risk and vulnerability into hazards theory has been developed. Indeed, risk and vulnerability have been used interchangeably. Consequently, populations often encounter high risk environments with little understandingofwaystolimitvulnerability. Thesituationisaggravatedbyincreasing populations and concomitant development ofhigh risk areas. Hillsborough County, Florida, is perhaps the archetype ofthis problem, having experienced rapid urban growth while giving scant attention to the hazardousness ofthe environment.

This research, therefore, looks at the hazardousness of place, focusing …

Gis And Spatial Analysis In Urban And Regional Research, Derek Bond

Derek Bond

The early optimism surrounding GIS has now faded. Few GIS implementations have lived up to expectation. The most successful have been those at the operational level where their main role has been to replace paper maps with digital ones. However, as the cost of GIS implementation falls and spatial data becomes more readily available there is a need to consider the future of GIS and spatial analysis. This is particularly important in the field of urban and regional research especially where considerable investment in GIS has already been made. This paper looks at the major issues that face regional and …

Cultural Policy In Singapore: Negotiating Economic And Socio-Cultural Agendas, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, I examine the role of cultural policy in a newly industrialised economy, which is at the same time a state with a short history and only nascent beginnings in nation-building and efforts to construct a distinctive cultural identity. Using Singapore as the site of analyses, develop an understanding of the intersection between the economic and socio-cultural agendas behind cultural development policies. I illustrate the hegemony of the economic, supported by the ideology and language of pragmatism and globalisation. At the same time, I explore the reception of and attempts to negotiate (and at times, contest) state policies …

Monitoring Cattle Behavior And Pasture Use With Gps And Gis, L. W. Turner, M. C. Udal, B. T. Larson, S. A. Shearer

Management and Monitoring of Farm Animals Collection

Precision agriculture is already being used commercially to improve variability management in row crop agriculture. In the same way, understanding how spatial and temporal variability of animal, forage, soil and landscape features affect grazing behavior and forage utilization provides potential to modify pasture management, improve efficiency of utilization, and maximize profits. Recent advances in global positioning system (GPS) technology have allowed the development of lightweight GPS collar receivers suitable for monitoring animal position at 5-min intervals. The GPS data can be imported into a geographic information system (GIS) to assess animal behavior characteristics and pasture utilization. This paper describes application …

Measuring Up Rhode Island, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Among its several distinctive characteristics is Rhode Island's small size. The smallest state gives its residents a distorted perception of distance (a trip to Woonsocket requires an overnight); is often used as a measure of scale (the fire burned an area the size of Rhode Island); and in the eyes of non-Rhode Islanders does not exist as a state (island off the coast of New York or a spot on the highway to Cape Cod)."

Towards A Spatial Model Of Rurality, Gillian Avruskin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term rural is used to describe people, places, traditions, and spaces. It is often employed as a setting for study as well as an object of study. People’s perceptions of rural are confused and differ considerably. For over a century researchers have attempted to define more precisely this term using social, economic, and or ecological components. However, problems of interpreting official definitions and measurements exist. These definitions require extensions in order to capture a more objective meaning of the word. This thesis presents the foundations of a new approach to measuring and defining rurality. A spatial based approach is …

Time Series Analysis Of Twenty Year Hourly Precipitation Record In Oshtemo, Michigan, Robert James Ruhf

Masters Theses

Hourly precipitation data from Oshtemo Township four miles (6.4 km) west of Kalamazoo, Michigan were examined for the period of July 18, 1979 through March 31, 2000.

Diurnal analysis of precipitation was performed on years, months, seasons, and the overall period of record. An overall maximum in the mean accumulation of precipitation was detected around 2000 LT, while a secondary maximum was detected during the morning hours. Elevated spring and fall accumulations were responsible for the evening maximum. Elevated summer and winter accumulations were responsible for the secondary morning maximum.

The pulse analysis of the time series of hourly precipitation …

Image-Based Change Detection Using An Integrated Spatiotemporal Gazetteer, Georgios Mountrakis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses image-based change detection. Motivation was provided by the lack of algorithms that incorporate in their solution diverse types of pre-existing and complementary information and have the ability to interact with a spatiotemporal environment. The main differentiation with our approach is that we develop our algorithm within an integrated spatiotemporal environment and we make use of all change evidence that might exist within that environment. In addition, a change resolution model is developed that will distinguish meaningful changes based on user requirements. A model for change is proposed that establishes a general framework for the incorporation of image …

Sedimentologic And Paleogeomorphologic Character Of The Western Beteiha Plain, Israel, Laura Baker

Student Work

The geographical problem addressed in this study was to reconstruct the paleogeography of the western Beteiha Plain, located between Bethsaida and the Sea of Galilee and determine its sedimentologic and paleogeomorphologic character. Grain size analysis of sediments, along with sediment color was used to reconstruct the landscape and identify areas such as estuaries or lagoons.

Sediment samples were collected throughout the Beteiha Plain at selected locations. Excavation and collection was accomplished with hand-driven core equipment and backhoe trenches.

The multidisciplinary approach used in this project included fieldwork for sediment collection, laboratory analysis for the production of the data necessary to …

An Examination Of Commercial Medicinal Plant Harvests, Mount Hood National Forest, Oregon, Shannon Michelle Campbell

Dissertations and Theses

During the past fifteen years, non-timber or special forest products have become an important economic resource in the Pacific Northwest. These products are primarily derived from understory species and contribute approximately $200 million to the regional economy. Medicinal plants are a little researched component of the non-timber forest product industry that relies on cultivated and wildcrafted (or wild-collected) medicinal plant species. This study examines the commercial extraction of wildcrafted medicinal plants from Mount Hood National Forest. Specifically, this study documents the medicinal plant species extracted from Mount Hood National Forest, their annual yield amounts, harvesting methods, and the changes in …

Cooking In Eden: Inventing Regional Cuisine In The Pacific Northwest, Amy Jo Woodruff

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines how regional cuisine is being self-consciously constructed in the Pacific Northwest and discusses the ways in which it contributes to identity in the region. I identify the characteristics--foods, dishes, and culinary practices--of this "new" Northwest cuisine, as well as social and cultural values associated with it, and explore how together they create a sense of regional distinctiveness and loyalty. Because this type of regional cuisine is closely associated with the professional cooking community, I look to restaurants in Portland, Oregon that self-identity as representative of the Pacific Northwest and to regional cookbooks, in order to pinpoint the …

Relationships Between Land Cover Change And Breeding Birds In Kalamazoo County, Michigan, Daniel Mark Hoffman

Masters Theses

Effective conservation planning of breeding birds requires knowledge of responses to landscape change and pattern. This study analyzed associations between land cover type and change among three ecological groups, forest birds, shrubland birds, and grassland birds using Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data for Kalamazoo County, Michigan. Land cover maps for the years 1974 and 1996 were produced to assess land cover changes for BBS data from the period 1970-1996. The Pearson coefficient of correlation was used to correlate land cover type percent within BBS radii and the total birds of a bird group observed within each radius. Conclusions of the …

Mapping Stamp Sand Dynamics: Gay, Michigan, Thomas H. Rasmussen

Masters Theses

Monitoring coastal change is an important undertaking because a high percentage of the population lives within close proximity to coastal areas. This paper examines a portion of Lake Superior's shoreline where coastal change has been shaped by the introduction of 25 million tonnes of stamp sand, a man-made sediment. Longshore currents erode and deposit sediment changing the geomorphology of the coastline on both a short- and long-term basis. This movement may be documented through comparison of archival and current air photos. A series of historical air photo mosaics were input to a Geographic Information System (GIS). The GIS was used …

Asiatic Cholera And Dysentery On The Oregon Trail: A Historical Medical Geography Study, Brian Lee Altonen

Dissertations and Theses

Two disease regions existed on the Oregon Trail. Asiatic cholera impacted the Platte River flood plain from 1849 to 1852. Dysentery developed two endemic foci due to the decay of buffalo carcasses in eastern and middle Nebraska between 1844 and 1848, but later developed a much larger endemic region west of this Great Plains due to the infection of livestock carcasses by opportunistic bacteria.

This study demonstrates that whereas Asiatic cholera diffusion along the Trail was defined primarily by human population features, topography, and regional climate along the Platte River flood plain, the distribution of opportunistic dysentery along the Trail …

Signs Of Popular Ecology In The Ecotourism Landscape Near Tikal National Park, Guatemala, Michael Mooradian Lupro

Dissertations and Theses

Ecotourism is a common conservation and development strategy in the Maya, Forest region. New sites of ecotourism consumption, such as El Rematé near Tikal National Park in Guatemala, are developing in response to consumer demand for budget accommodations in this attractive cultural and natural setting. This study analyzes new ecotourism infrastructure developments in El Rematé for signs that this tourism draws on ecological imagery as expressed in popular media - or popular ecology - not on the natural and cultural ecology of the region that is the target of international conservation efforts. Analysis suggests that ecotourism entrepreneurs who effectively associate …

Place, Disease And Mortality: Trimble County, Kentucky 1849-1894, Nancy Demaree

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This researcher describes the characteristics of place...physical, cultural and human...of a small Kentucky county and looks at the incidence of disease and dying that occurred in that place in the last half of the nineteenth century. The impact of death on particular subsets of the general population was given a closer evaluation. Very young, females and the slave/Black communities were investigated individually. The overall site and situation of all aspects of Trimble County, Kentucky were viewed in an effort to support the notion that it is the manner in which man interacts with this environment that causes disease and death …

The Geography Of Exploration: A Study In The Process Of Physical Exploration And Geographical Discovery, Joseph St.Onge

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Exploration has been a common literary topic throughout the history of humans. However, much of this historical tradition has possessed a fairly narrow focus, emphasizing the drama and heroics of an individual explorer or concentrating on a description of a particular exploration. There has been little attempt at understanding the process of exploration and placing this important process in context with the historic and geographic phenomena that both affect and are affected by it. In this thesis, the author has broken the process of exploration down into a theoretical structure that is presented in a holistic model. This model has …

(Un)Settling Accounts: Disclosure Interviews Peter Jackson, Paul Kingsbury, Jennifer Kopf, Matt Mccourt, Theresa Zawacki

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Charting Neptune's Realm: From Classical Mythology To Satellite Imagery (Exhibit Guide), Osher Map Library And Smith Center For Cartographic Education

Osher Map Library Miscellaneous Publications

Charting Neptune's Realm: From Classical Mythology to Satellite Imagery. April 4, 2000 to January 11, 2001

The charts in this exhibition explore how mariners have distinguished one piece of water from any other, by determining what phenomena can be delineated across the vast, trackless ocean and by developing notations to express those phenomena.

Geography Newsletter, Spring 2000, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Geography.

Geography Newsletter

Inside this issue:

-- As the New Century Dawns
-- Dr. Robert Clark Retired Spring 1999
-- Geography enrollments for Non-Introductory Courses
-- UNI Partnership in the Midwestern Transportation Consortium
-- Careers in Geography
-- Curricular Developments
-- New Cultural Geography Faculty Member Appointed for 2000-01
-- Department of Geography to Establish Foundation Account
-- Recent Geography Graduates
-- Alumni Album
-- Roy Chung to Retire This Spring
-- Spring Awards Banquet: Friday, April 21, 2000

Collection Of Detonation Signatures And Characterization Of Spectral Features, Jay A. Orson

Theses and Dissertations

The remote observations of the temporal and spectral characteristics of the infrared (IR) emissions from exploding ordnance have been correlated with explosion conditions. A Bomem MR-154 Fourier Transform Interferometer with two detectors, InSb and HgCdTe, and a 75 mrad telescope was used to record spectra in the 1.3 - 20 µm range. Data was collected at spectral resolutions of 16 cm^-1 and 4 cm^-1 and temporal resolutions of 0.045 s and 0.123 s respectively. Two field tests were conducted: (1) a set of dynamic drop explosions and (2) a series of static detonations. In most events, the temporal …

There's Good News From The Nation's Classrooms, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Last May at the finals of the National Geographic Bee held in Washington, DC, Alex Trebeck was getting concerned because he thought that he would be running out of questions for the ten finalists who came from throughout the country. Well, he did have enough, although it was close.

In the previous year it took just 80 questions to determine a winner of the Bee, an annual event sponsored by the National Geographic Society in which over five million kids nationwide from grades four through eight compete. In 1999, however, it took 140 questions before a winner was determined. In …

Are You Geographically Informed?, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"With all the hoopla today about kids not knowing their geography, the question could also be raised about today's businessperson and his knowledge of the world. After all, aren't the buzzwords now the global economy and knowing your place in it?"

Crop-Raiding Elephants And Conservation Implications At Way Kambas National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia, Philip J. Nyhus, Sumianto, Ronald Tilson

Faculty Scholarship

Crop raiding by wild elephants is one of the most significant sources of park–people conflict in Sumatra, Indonesia. The distribution, impact and conservation implications of elephant crop-raiding in 13 villages that border Way Kambas National Park in southern Sumatra were studied for 18 months. The data are based on rapid village and field assessments, data logs maintained by village observers and a quantitative household survey. Elephants raided crops year-round at a mean rate of 0.53 elephants per day for the entire study area. The frequency of crop raiding was related to vegetation type along the park border, the size and …

Stories From The Camino Real: Cultural Transmission Among Hispanic Communities In Northwest Louisiana And Northwest Texas, Dominica Ramírez

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Kurdish Population In The Turkish Context, Ibrahim Sirkeci

Ibrahim Sirkeci

This paper explores the Kurdish population as an ethnic minority within the Turkish context. In this regard, it is the first investigation of the Kurdish population in Turkey to be based on a nation-wide representative survey supplemented by other data sources and previous studies. This study analyses the demographic patterns and related socio-economic characteristics of Turkey’s Kurdish population and compares the findings with the entire population of Turkey. The results indicate that the Kurdish population is currently in a pre-transitional stage in terms of the demographic patterns and constitutes with regard to both its demography and socio-economic characteristics the least …

On The Ellison–Glaeser Geographic Concentration Index, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

I use confidential employment data to investigate the empirical properties of a recent industry geographic concentration index (and related index of industry co-agglomeration) proposed by Ellison and Glaeser (1997). The results show that Ellison and Glaeser’s theoretical finding that their concentration measures are robust to differences in the level of spatial aggregation in the underlying employment data does not generally hold in practice. This implies that sensitivity testing for alternative spatial units should accompany any analysis with the concentration measures.

The Post-Apartheid City And The Globalization Of Eroding The Landscape Of Apartheid, David Lanegran

David Lanegran, Retired

No abstract provided.

Minnesota: Nature's Playground, David A. Lanegran

David Lanegran, Retired

No abstract provided.

Paradoxical Constraints To Agricultural Intensification In Malawi: The Interplay Between Labor, Land And Policy, William G. Moseley

William G Moseley

No abstract provided.