Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Characterization Of Smoke Particles Toward Improved Remote Sensing Retrievals And Chemical Transport Modeling, Chenchong Zhang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Wildfires increase in extent, intensity, and frequency across the globe over the recent decades. The uncontrolled fires trigger cascading effects on local ecosystems and the fire emissions pose a higher risk to air quality and climate. Wildfire emissions contain a variety of trace gases and particulate matters. The particle-phase emissions, especially those light-absorbing species including black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC), significantly affect the regional and global climate by modulating the radiative transfer phenomena in the atmosphere. A great discrepancy still exists between model- and observation-based estimates of aerosol-radiation interactions (ARI). The discrepancy is partially attributed to the mischaracterizations …

Spatio-Temporal Changes In Vegetation In The Last Two Decades (2001–2020) In The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region, Yuan Zou, Wei Chen, Siliang Li, Tiejun Wang, Le Yu, Min Xu, Ramesh P. Singh, Cong-Qiang Liu

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

In terrestrial ecosystems, vegetation is sensitive to climate change and human activities. Its spatial-temporal changes also affect the ecological and social environment. In this paper, we considered the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region to study the spatio-temporal vegetation patterns. The detailed analysis of a moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data were carried out through the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Our results show a slow and tortuous upward trend in the average leaf area index (LAI) in the study region for the periods 2001–2020. Specifically, Beijing had the highest LAI value, with an average of 1.64 over twenty years, followed by Hebei (1.30) and …

Global Food Insecurity And Famine From Reduced Crop, Marine Fishery And Livestock Production Due To Climate Disruption From Nuclear War Soot Injection, Lilia Xia, Alan Robock, Kim J. N. Scherrer, Cheryl S. Harrison, Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Isabelle Weindl, Jonas Jaegermeyr, Charles G. Bardeen, Owen B. Toon, Ryan F. Heneghan

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause disruptions to the Earth’s climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production. Here, we use climate, crop and fishery models to estimate the impacts arising from six scenarios of stratospheric soot injection, predicting the total food calories available in each nation post-war after stored food is consumed. In quantifying impacts away from target areas, we demonstrate that soot injections larger than 5 Tg would lead to mass food shortages, and livestock and aquatic food production would be unable to compensate for reduced crop output, in almost all countries. Adaptation measures such as …

Automated Identification Of Astronauts On Board The International Space Station: A Case Study In Space Archaeology, Rao Hamza Ali, Amir Kanan Kashefi, Alice C. Gorman, Justin St. P. Walsh, Erik J. Linstead

Art Faculty Articles and Research

We develop and apply a deep learning-based computer vision pipeline to automatically identify crew members in archival photographic imagery taken on-board the International Space Station. Our approach is able to quickly tag thousands of images from public and private photo repositories without human supervision with high degrees of accuracy, including photographs where crew faces are partially obscured. Using the results of our pipeline, we carry out a large-scale network analysis of the crew, using the imagery data to provide novel insights into the social interactions among crew during their missions.

An Analysis Of Decolonization Efforts In Urban Agriculture: A Pathway To Indigenous Food Sovereignty And Cultural Revitalization, Sarah Fisher

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

My research focuses on applications of urban agriculture, relationships between Indigenous peoples and community-based agriculture projects, and decolonizing food systems. I provide insight on colonialist tendencies, or ways in which the marginalization of Indigenous peoples is deeply entrenched within government, educational, and other leadership settings, as a way to evaluate and restructure urban agriculture projects to serve, represent and heal Native communities. Conventional urban agriculture has many known benefits, including its capacity for food production; however, the extent to which Indigenous communities participate in and benefit from urban agriculture has not been widely studied. Ongoing exclusion of Indigenous peoples from …

Renewable Energy Legislation In Nevada: 2017 - 2021, Peter Grema, Zachary Walusek, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

The purpose of this fact sheet is to summarize legislative actions from the biennial 79th, 80th, and 81st Nevada Legislative Sessions (2017, 2019, and 2021) regarding solar energy production and state efforts to reach 50 percent energy production from renewable sources by 2030. By 2050, Nevada has a statutorily mandated obligation to be a net-zero carbon producer in fulfilling energy production needs from large scale utility services.

Social Equity Is Key To Sustainable Ocean Governance, Katherine M. Crosman, Edward H. Allison, Yoshitaka Ota, Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor, Gerald G. Singh, Wilf Swartz, Megan Bailey, Kate M. Barclay, Grant Blume, Mathieu Colléter, Michael Fabinyi, Elaine M. Faustman, Russell Fielding

Anthropology and Geography

Calls to address social equity in ocean governance are expanding. Yet ‘equity’ is seldom clearly defined. Here we present a framework to support contextually-informed assessment of equity in ocean governance. Guiding questions include: (1) Where and (2) Why is equity being examined? (3) Equity for or amongst Whom? (4) What is being distributed? (5) When is equity considered? And (6) How do governance structures impact equity? The framework supports consistent operationalization of equity, challenges oversimplification, and allows evaluation of progress. It is a step toward securing the equitable ocean governance already reflected in national and international commitments.

Please view the …

A Decade Review Of Disease Surveillance Research Trends In The International Journal Of Health Geographics (2009 To 2018), Rose Jimenez, Paradorn Wongchanapai

Publications and Research

The field of health geographics is rapidly growing in its methods and epistemologies. This is a review of the open-source journal International Journal of Health Geographics, and the trends in disease surveillance over ten years (2009-2018). Drawing from research review methodologies, we wrote a Python script to quantify research trends within the field of geographic disease surveillance, finding many articles focusing on population health, techniques of GIS, qualitative techniques, and geospatial technology for health monitoring. This was foundational in conducting an in-depth qualitative lexical analysis of article content and epistemologies. Overall, we concluded that over the time period, the …

Validated Question Bank For Assessing Pilot Knowledge Of Aviation Weather Appendix: Weather Product Interpretation Questions, Robert Thomas, Cassandra Dommingo, John Kleber, Jackie Mcsorely, Amber Cole, Thomas Guinn, Elizabeth Blickensderfer

General Aviation Weather Display Interpretation

This appendix supplements the Thomas et al. (2022) paper titled “Validated Question Bank for Assessing Pilot Knowledge of Aviation Weather ” which validates a set of weather product interpretation questions that can be used to measure a pilot’s understanding of weather. The assessment consists of 15 weather product interpretation topics which can be administered as a single 65-question survey or, as in the Thomas et al. (2022) study, two assessments of 33 and 32 questions each separated by topic. The set of 65 questions can be found in this appendix along with a table which demonstrates how to separate the …

Genetic Freedom Of The Seas In The Age Of Extractivism: Marine Genetic Resources In Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, Irus Braverman

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 4 in Laws of the Sea: Interdisciplinary Currents, Irus Braverman, ed.

Areas beyond national jurisdiction are the largest environment on earth and marine genetic resources are its new, and perhaps final, frontier. It is no wonder, then, that the scope and protection of marine genetic resources in this oceanic space have been hotly contested and that a new doctrine for ocean governance has been coined in this context: mare geneticum. This chapter examines different definitions of marine genetic resources debated in the ongoing treaty negotiations over areas beyond national jurisdiction (the BBNJ), the conflicting interests involved, and …

Amphibious Legal Geographies: Toward Land–Sea Regimes, Irus Braverman

Contributions to Books

Published as ine introduction to Laws of the Sea: Interdisciplinary Currents, Irus Braverman, ed.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the juridical thinking that has enshrined the land/sea divide into contemporary governmental infrastructures, disciplinary traditions, and regulatory apparatuses, and charts the disastrous implications that such a legal fixation on the land/sea binary has wrought on human and other-than-human lifeworlds. As the collection proceeds, a second broad theme emerges, building on the first: when one rethinks the abstraction of law as played out on the ground, the …

Characterization Of Municipal Water Sources For The Mexico-Lerma-Cutzamala Basin Region, Ian F. Hirons

Sustainability and Social Justice

The Mexico and Toluca Valleys in central Mexico are part of one of the most heavily populated megalopolises in the western hemisphere where consistent access to safe, affordable, and quality water sources figures to be a decisive challenge in the era of climate change. This professional project report compiles a range of statistics and information about the vital liquid for 29 municipalities located in and around the Mexico City and Toluca areas. This contribution is derived from a broader team research endeavor that seeks to gauge the impacts and adaptive processes to climate change within those regions. By doing so, …

An Integrated Gis & Flood Vulnerability Index Approach To Evaluating Risk & Environmental Equity In Urban Karst Communities, Chloe Cooper

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examines how the usage of an integrated GIS (Geographic Information Systems), flood vulnerability assessment, and management approaches can aid in hazard response planning in karst groundwater systems, particularly in urban environments. In order to also better understand the impacts of flood events on socially vulnerable groups, this research was focused on historically excluded communities. Additionally, place-based vulnerabilities were primarily assessed based upon three main factors in the vulnerability framework and how these components intersect: social, environmental conditions, and economic. By understanding which areas of the City of Bowling Green, an iconic urban karst area, are most vulnerable and …

Environmental Communication: Changing The Attitude-Behavioral Gap In Science Communication Utilizing Strategic Messaging, Carrie Helgeson Nelms

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

National Polls in the United States consistently find the public’s beliefs and attitudes about climate change and other environmental issues significantly diverge from those held by the science community. A communication gap between the findings on the causes and effects of environmental issues and the public’s inability to interpret or refuse to accept these findings are possible causes of this divergence. This communication gap constitutes a threat to society because of inaction to environmental problems and points to needed changes in scientific messaging that better informs and motivates behavioral change. The present research employed a strategic message design to affect …

Perspectives On Living Shorelines: Marine Contractors And Agents In Southeast Virginia, Michelle Covi, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

Presentations, Lectures, Posters, Reports

No abstract provided.

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 …

Estimating The Health Effects Of Adding Bicycle And Pedestrian Paths At The Census Tract Level: Multiple Model Comparison, Ross J. Gore, Christopher Lynch, Craig Jordan, Andrew Collins, R. Michael Robinson, Gabrielle Fuller, Pearson Ames, Prateek Keerthi, Yash Kandukuri

VMASC Publications

Background: Adding additional bicycle and pedestrian paths to an area can lead to improved health outcomes for residents over time. However, quantitatively determining which areas benefit more from bicycle and pedestrian paths, how many miles of bicycle and pedestrian paths are needed, and the health outcomes that may be most improved remain open questions.

Objective: Our work provides and evaluates a methodology that offers actionable insight for city-level planners, public health officials, and decision makers tasked with the question “To what extent will adding specified bicycle and pedestrian path mileage to a census tract improve residents’ health outcomes over time?” …

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, July & August 2022, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Volume 3, Issue 5

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2 Awards & Recognition
Page 3 Resources for Student Success
Page 4 Welcome to New Faculty & Staff
Page 5 Summer Activities in CNS
Page 9 Celebrating the lives of those who touched the College
Page 10 Media Coverage of CNS
Page 12 Open PRAIRIE Data
Page 13 Snaps from he start of the semester
Page 14 Science as Art Competition

A Cross-Scale Nexus: Microbial Functional Genes In Tandem With Molecular-Level Nitrogen Fluxes And Implications For Field-Scale Biogeochemical Processes, Srusti Maddala

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen (N) biogeochemical cycling entails close networking between soil nutrients, plant species and resulting microbial communities, and abiotic factors such as temperature, moisture, and pH. To better understand transformations of N in soil microsites, which are known to be rich in N-cycling behavior, the microdialysis technique was employed to generate in situ data on temporal alterations of N during wetting-drying conditions in both the field and laboratory. The objectives were to 1) determine the lifespan of the microdialysis technique in field conditions, 2) evaluate the ability of the method to yield N fluxes that would be differential between the two …

A Comparison Of Methods Used For The Elimination Of Organics From Soil Prior To Analysis By Ftir-Atr And Sem-Eds, Argeliz Pomales

Student Theses

This project suggests improvements to the treatment methods utilized for the sample preparation and evaluation of minerals in soil samples encountered in forensic science casework and research. The evaluation of pre-treated and post-treated soil samples were performed using Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy with Attenuated Total Reflection (FTIR-ATR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Because soil samples contain a significant amount of organic matter and water which interfere with examination of these minerals while using these instruments, pretreatment methods are necessary to isolate the mineral fraction for examination and analysis.

Soil samples were first sieved with various size stainless steel mesh …

Fed-Ltd: Towards Cross-Platform Ride Hailing Via Federated Learning To Dispatch, Yansheng Wang, Yongxin Tong, Zimu Zhou, Ziyao Ren, Yi Xu, Guobin Wu, Weifeng Lv

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Learning based order dispatching has witnessed tremendous success in ride hailing. However, the success halts within individual ride hailing platforms because sharing raw order dispatching data across platforms may leak user privacy and business secrets. Such data isolation not only impairs user experience but also decreases the potential revenues of the platforms. In this paper, we advocate federated order dispatching for cross-platform ride hailing, where multiple platforms collaboratively make dispatching decisions without sharing their local data. Realizing this concept calls for new federated learning strategies that tackle the unique challenges on effectiveness, privacy and efficiency in the context of order …

Investigating Toxicity Changes Of Cross-Community Redditors From 2 Billion Posts And Comments, Hind Almerekhi, Haewoon Kwak, Bernard J. Jansen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research investigates changes in online behavior of users who publish in multiple communities on Reddit by measuring their toxicity at two levels. With the aid of crowdsourcing, we built a labeled dataset of 10,083 Reddit comments, then used the dataset to train and fine-tune a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) neural network model. The model predicted the toxicity levels of 87,376,912 posts from 577,835 users and 2,205,581,786 comments from 890,913 users on Reddit over 16 years, from 2005 to 2020. This study utilized the toxicity levels of user content to identify toxicity changes by the user within the …

A Climate Resilience Research Renewal Agenda: Learning Lessons From The Covid-19 Pandemic For Urban Climate Resilience, Mark Pelling, Winston T. L. Chow, Eric Chu, Richard Dawson, David Dodman, Arabella Fraser, Bronwyn Hayward, Luna Khirfan, Timon Mcphearson, Anjal Prakash, Gina Ziervogel

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic opens an opportunity for enhanced research and action on inclusive urban resilience to climate change. Lessons and their implications are used to describe a climate resilience research renewal agenda. Three key lessons are identified. The first lesson is generic, that climate change risk coexists and interacts with other risks through overlapping social processes, conditions and decision-making contexts. Two further lessons are urban specific: that networks of connectivity bring risk as well as resilience and that overcrowding is a key indicator of the multiple determinants of vulnerability to both COVID-19 and climate change impacts. From …

Evaluating Privacy Adaptation Presentation Methods To Support Social Media Users In Their Privacy-Related Decision-Making Process, Moses Namara

All Dissertations

Several privacy scholars have advocated for user-tailored privacy (UTP). A privacy-enhancing adaptive privacy approach to help reconcile users' lack of awareness, privacy management skills and motivation to use available platform privacy features with their need for personalized privacy support in alignment with their privacy preferences. The idea behind UTP is to measure users' privacy characteristics and behaviors, use these measurements to create a personalized model of the user's privacy preferences, and then provide adaptive support to the user in navigating and engaging with the available privacy settings---or even implement certain settings automatically on the user's behalf. To this end, most …

El Niño And The Human-Environment Nexus: Drought And Vulnerability In Singapore 1877-1911, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This chapter brings a climatic perspective to the study of Singaporean history by exploring the impacts of the strong El Niño inspired droughts of 1877, 1902 and 1911. The narrative focuses on unpacking the nexus of nature-inspired versus human-induced vulnerability to drought within the contexts of colonial urbanisation and looks at the short-to medium-term impacts of the events on society. It also explores how such events inspired new questions about the climate and regional teleconnections, as a wealth of evidence became available due to the increasingly connected nature of scientific institutions, scientific literature, and communications systems across the Indian Ocean …

A Dynamic Relationship With Wilderness: Comparing Day And Multi-Day Visitors' Indicators Of Quality In Wilderness Settings, Caleb Meyer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The length of stay in wilderness areas is declining and, in many areas, day visitors comprise most of all use. Most prior research exploring this trend took place in the 1990s and few studies of wilderness visitation account for the increase in outdoor recreation participation over the last decade. Lack of understanding surrounding this trend raises questions about managerial and philosophical approaches to the recreation-wilderness relationship. This study explored these topics within visitor use management approaches used by the National Park Service, which manages the proposed Glen Canyon Wilderness, near Escalante, Utah, where this research took place.

Results of this …

Integrated Assessment Of Urban Overheating Impacts On Human Life, N. Nazarian, E. S. Krayenhoff, B. Bechtel, D. M. Hondula, R. Paolini, J. Vanos, T. Cheung, Winston T. L. Chow, Et Al

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Urban overheating, driven by global climate change and urban development, is a major contemporary challenge that substantially impacts urban livability and sustainability. Overheating represents a multifaceted threat to the well-being, performance, and health of individuals as well as the energy efficiency and economy of cities, and it is influenced by complex interactions between building, city, and global scale climates. In recent decades, extensive discipline-specific research has characterized urban heat and assessed its implications on human life, including ongoing efforts to bridge neighboring disciplines. The research horizon now encompasses complex problems involving a wide range of disciplines, and therefore comprehensive and …

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 …

Conservation Of Open-Canopy-Associated Wildlife: Multi-Scale Management Impacts On Imperiled Herpetofauna, Ethan Joseph Royal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The loss of open-canopy ecosystems throughout North America has precipitated declines in reptile and amphibian species associated with these habitat types. Current efforts to restore open-canopy ecosystems are underway in many areas, but the local distributions of, habitat characteristics required by and the effects of management actions on many herpetofauna species are poorly understood or entirely unknown. Research examining relationships among herpetofauna and their environments is often complicated by the extremely low detectability seen in many studies. We used landscape-scale, assemblage-level surveys to investigate the occupancy patterns and habitat associations of open-canopy-associated herpetofauna in two regions, as well as gain …

The Mangrove Walks: An Econometric Analysis Of Climate Migration Drivers From Coastal Bangladesh And Their Geopolitical Impacts, Kendall Scott Byers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coastal Bangladesh is subject to extreme climate change forces upon poor, rural populations. The aim of this thesis is to determine the strength of environmental drivers of migration and discern whether planned or catastrophic migration predominates in the polder areas of Bangladesh. I use regression analysis on a 1,025 household, 2016 IRRI/IWMI analysis of Polder 28/1, 28/2, and 30 within Satkhira district to determine factor correlations with migration. Progressive salinization is the strongest environmental driver, while flooding decreases migration through trapping household capital investment. Religion has the greatest correlation with migration. Hindus migrate less frequently, but do so with more …