Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Applying Place-Based Social-Ecological Research To Address Water Scarcity: Insights For Future Research, Jodi Brandt

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

Globally, environmental and social change in water-scarce regions challenge the sustainability of social-ecological systems. WaterSES, a sponsored working group within the Program for Ecosystem Change and Society, explores and compares the social-ecological dynamics related to water scarcity across placed-based international research sites with contrasting local and regional water needs and governance, including research sites in Spain and Sweden in Europe, South Africa, China, and Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Texas in the USA. This paper aims to provide a commentary on insights into conducting future solutions-oriented research on water scarcity based on the understanding of the social-ecological dynamics of water scarce …

Winter Bat Activity In A Landscape Without Traditional Hibernacula, Amy M. Hammesfahr, Rene E. Ohms

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

Prior to 2014, bat research at Devils Tower National Monument (DETO) focused on bats present during the summer months. Biologists at DETO assumed local bats were strictly summer residents due to the presumed lack of typical habitat features associated with bat hibernation, such as caves and mines. This lack of traditional hibernacula features at DETO discouraged staff and research cooperators from studying winter bat populations. Despite the earlier assumption that bats were unlikely to hibernate on the monument, DETO documented significant winter bat activity through passive winter acoustic monitoring. This study is the first study at DETO that documents …

The Influence Of Parental Control And Parent-Child Relational Qualities On Adolescent Internet Addiction: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study In Hong Kong, Daniel T. L. Shek, Xiaoqin Zhu, Cecilia M. S. Ma

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

This study investigated how parental behavioral control, parental psychological control, and parent-child relational qualities predicted the initial level and rate of change in adolescent internet addiction (IA) across the junior high school years. The study also investigated the concurrent and longitudinal effects of different parenting factors on adolescent IA. Starting from the 2009/2010 academic year, 3,328 Grade 7 students (M_age = 12.59 ± 0.74 years) from 28 randomly selected secondary schools in Hong Kong responded on a yearly basis to a questionnaire measuring multiple constructs including socio-demographic characteristics, perceived parenting characteristics, and IA. Individual growth curve (IGC) analyses …

Women In Science: A Course, Krystyna Krupinski

Senior Honors Projects

Ask any student to name five women who have made advancements in scientific fields and most likely they will not be able to name more than two. With a lack of courses highlighting women scientists’ achievements, this lack of knowledge is hardly surprising I am addressing this issue in my work. Through the researching of scientific advancements made by women, I have proposed a method to teach students about these scientists so names like Johnson, Franklin, and Curie become as commonplace as Einstein, Hawking, and Bohr. Frequently in science classes in middle schools and high schools, the focus is only …

Assessing The Ordinality Of Response Bias With Item Response Models: A Case Study Using The Phq-9, Venessa N. Singhroy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Improper scale usage in psychological and clinical assessment is an important problem. If respondents do not use the scales in a consistent manner, the reliability of a composite is likely to be attenuated. This is particularly problematic when particular items are singled out for special treatment or when subscales are of interest, not just a total score. This study used both non-parametric and parametric item response theory (IRT) methods to gain further insight into the validity of the PHQ-9, a dual purpose instrument that assesses the severity of depressive symptoms using nine Likert-scale items and allows the investigator to establish …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring At Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, 2017 Data Summary Report, Stephanie L. Rockwood

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2017 at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (AGFO) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN) and the Northern Great Plains Fire Effects Program (NGPFire). This was the seventh year of field work conducted by NGPN at AGFO.

In 2017, crew members from NGPN visited six long-term plant community monitoring (PCM) plots and NGPFire visited eight additional PCM and fire plant community monitoring (FPCM) plots to collect data on the plant communities at AGFO. This collaborative effort is part of a long-term monitoring program established to better …

A Geospatial Study Of The Drought Impact On Surface Water Reservoirs: Study Cases From Texas And California, Zachary Asbury

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drought in Texas and California has been a long-term problem. Over the past 60 years reservoir construction has occurred to remedy the situation. Satellite imagery has been used historically to measure and monitor fluctuations in surface water reservoirs. This investigation integrates remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) technologies to study the impact of drought on selected surface water reservoirs in San Angelo and Dallas in Texas, and Lake Oroville in California. Expansion and shrinkage over the 2005-2016 period reveal the concrete impact that drought, along with other factors, have on the selected lakes. Fluctuations in reservoir sizes during summer …

How College Campuses Are Using Social Media During Severe Weather Events, Emmale Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how college campuses are using social media during severe weather events. This topic surfaced after a tornado devastated Moore, Oklahoma in May 2013 and those displaced flocked to the University of Oklahoma campus after a post made on Twitter went viral prior to an official message being sent out by the university. In order to further explore this topic, a qualitative phenomenological case study was conducted at the following sites: University of Alabama, Missouri Southern State University, University of Oklahoma, and Florida State University. This study included observations of social media posts on Facebook and Twitter on …

Gis Modeling Of The Prominent Geohazards In Arkansas, Kyle Walker Rowden

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The State of Arkansas is prone to numerous geohazards. This thesis is a twofold study of prominent geohazards in Arkansas: the first fold includes a novel triggerless approach for mass wasting susceptibility modeling applied to the Boston Mountains in NW Arkansas, and the second fold is a GIS-based regression modeling of the extreme weather patterns at the state level. Each study fold is presented in this thesis as a separate chapter embracing a published peer-reviewed paper. In the first paper, I have used the analytical hierarchy process to assign preliminary statistical weights to the most cogent variables influencing mass wasting …

Designing Interactive Virtual Environments With Feedback In Health Applications., Yi Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most important factors to influence user experience in human-computer interaction is the user emotional reaction. Interactive environments including serious games that are responsive to user emotions improve their effectiveness and user satisfactions. Testing and training for user emotional competence is meaningful in healthcare field, which has motivated us to analyze immersive affective games using emotional feedbacks. In this dissertation, a systematic model of designing interactive environment is presented, which consists of three essential modules: affect modeling, affect recognition, and affect control. In order to collect data for analysis and construct these modules, a series of experiments were …

Irrigation Practice Adoption: Causes And Consequences In The Arkansas Delta, Kerr James Adams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Concerns about groundwater depletion from conventional irrigation agriculture in the Arkansas Delta region have led to the promotion of more efficient irrigation practices. With Arkansas being the largest producer of rice, the 10th largest producer of soybeans and the 16th largest producer of corn in the United States, the irrigation demand of these crops has put pressure on producers to find ways to irrigate more efficiently. Not only are the alternative technologies supposed to reduce water use, it is also believed that their adoption can also yield economic benefits for the producer. Despite these assumed benefits, adoption of alternative technologies …

The Ethics In Synthetics: Statistics In The Service Of Ethics And Law In Health-Related Research In Big Data From Multiple Sources, Sharon Bassan Ph.D., Ofer Harel Ph.D.

Journal of Law and Health

An ethical advancement of scientific knowledge demands a delicate equilibrium between benefits and harms, in particular in health-related research. When applying and advancing scientific knowledge or technologies, Article 4 of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, ethically justifiable research requires maximizing direct and indirect benefits and minimizing possible harms. The National Institution of Health [NIH] Data Sharing Policy and Implementation Guidance similarly states that data necessary for drawing valid conclusions and advancing medical research should be made as widely and freely available as possible (in order to share the benefits) while safeguarding the privacy of participants from potentially …

Multimodal Depression Detection: An Investigation Of Features And Fusion Techniques For Automated Systems, Michelle Renee Morales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Depression is a serious illness that affects a large portion of the world’s population. Given the large effect it has on society, it is evident that depression is a serious health issue. This thesis evaluates, at length, how technology may aid in assessing depression. We present an in-depth investigation of features and fusion techniques for depression detection systems. We also present OpenMM: a novel tool for multimodal feature extraction. Lastly, we present novel techniques for multimodal fusion. The contributions of this work add considerably to our knowledge of depression detection systems and have the potential to improve future systems by …

Feasibility Of Harbor-Wide Barrier Systems: Preliminary Analysis For Boston Harbor, Paul Kirshen, Mark Borrelli, Jarrett Byrnes, Robert F. Chen, Lucy Lockwood, Chris Watson, Kimberly Starbuck, Jack Wiggin, Allison Novelly, Kristin Uiterwyk, Kelli Thurson, Brett Mcmann, Carly Foster, Heather Sprague, Hugh Roberts, Di Jin, Kirk Bosma, Eric Holmes, Zach Stromer, Joe Famely, Alex Shaw, Brittany Hoffnagle, Rebecca Herst

School for the Environment General Publications

The aim of this study is to provide the City of Boston with a preliminary assessment of the feasibilities and potential benefits, costs, and environmental impacts of three harborwide barrier configurations.

While this study is not comprehensive, and there are many ways that further research could refine and extend its findings, those findings were clear enough to justify making recommendations for next steps. The authors recommend that the City continue to focus its climate resilience strategy for the next several decades on the shore-based multi-layered approach described in Climate Ready Boston. Shore-based solutions would provide flood management more quickly at …

Discovering Hidden Topical Hubs And Authorities In Online Social Networks, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Tuan-Anh Hoang, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Finding influential users in online social networks is an important problem with many possible useful applications. HITS and other link analysis methods, in particular, have been often used to identify hub and authority users in web graphs and online social networks. These works, however, have not considered topical aspect of links in their analysis. A straightforward approach to overcome this limitation is to first apply topic models to learn the user topics before applying the HITS algorithm. In this paper, we instead propose a novel topic model known as Hub and Authority Topic (HAT) model to combines the two process …

Learning Latent Characteristics Of Locations Using Location-Based Social Networking Data, Thanh Nam Doan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation addresses the modeling of latent characteristics of locations to describe the mobility of users of location-based social networking platforms. With many users signing up location-based social networking platforms to share their daily activities, these platforms become a gold mine for researchers to study human visitation behavior and location characteristics. Modeling such visitation behavior and location characteristics can benefit many use- ful applications such as urban planning and location-aware recommender sys- tems. In this dissertation, we focus on modeling two latent characteristics of locations, namely area attraction and neighborhood competition effects using location-based social network data. Our literature survey …

Improving Swarm Performance By Applying Machine Learning To A New Dynamic Survey, John Taylor Jackson

Master's Theses

A company, Unanimous AI, has created a software platform that allows individuals to come together as a group or a human swarm to make decisions. These human swarms amplify the decision-making capabilities of both the individuals and the group. One way Unanimous AI increases the swarm’s collective decision-making capabilities is by limiting the swarm to more informed individuals on the given topic. The previous way Unanimous AI selected users to enter the swarm was improved upon by a new methodology that is detailed in this study. This new methodology implements a new type of survey that collects data that is …

Examining Quadratic Relationships Between Traits And Methods In Two Multitrait-Multimethod Models, Fredric A. Hintz

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Psychological researchers are interested in the validity of the measures they use, and the multitrait-multimethod design is one of the most frequently employed methods to examine validity. Confirmatory factor analysis is now a commonly used analytic tool for examining multitrait-multimethod data, where an underlying mathematical model is fit to data and the amount of variance due to the trait and method factors is estimated. While most contemporary confirmatory factor analysis methods for examining multi-trait multi-method data do not allow relationships between the trait and method factors, a few recently proposed models allow for the examination of linear relationships between traits …

Allocating Interventions Based On Counterfactual Predictions: A Case Study On Homelessness Services, Amanda R. Kube

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Modern statistical and machine learning methods are increasingly capable of modeling individual or personalized treatment effects by predicting counterfactual outcomes. These counterfactual predictions could be used to allocate different interventions across populations based on individual characteristics. In many domains, like social services, the availability of possible interventions can be severely resource limited. This thesis considers possible improvements to the allocation of such services in the context of homelessness service provision in a major metropolitan area. Using data from the homeless system, I show potential for substantial predicted benefits in terms of reducing the number of families who experience repeat episodes …

Towards Quantifying Relevant Land Cover Change: A Case Study In The Central Flyway Of The Monarch Butterfly, Hanna Lenee Ford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past 20 years notable decreases in monarch butterfly populations have led researchers to begin evaluating the landscape for changes and seeking out opportunities for enacting conservation programs to better support their survival. The monarch butterfly has recently come under consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act which has created a need for a more informed view of the landscape through which the migrate and breed, the central United States. In this research three spatially-explicit models are explored using the most applicable datasets currently available to address pressing policy and land manager decisions regarding monarch butterfly and pollinator …

Big Data For Climate Change Actions And The Paradox Of Citizen Informedness, Kustini Lim-Wavde, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Advanced sensor technology, social media, and other information technologies have provided us with “big data” on climate change. Due to the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Climate Observing System, climate observations and records, as well as discussions on climate-related concerns such as measurement of air temperature, are widely available now. The United Nations’ Global Pulse visualises public engagement on climate change globally, with data such as the volume of climate-related tweets. Big data, data analytics, and the sharing of scientific results in the popular press have created, as a result, an unprecedented level of citizen informedness—the degree to which citizens have …

Understanding The Effects Of Taxi Ride-Sharing: A Case Study Of Singapore, Yazhe Wang, Baihua Zheng, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper studies the effects of ride-sharing among those calling on taxis in Singapore for similar origin and destination pairs at nearly the same time of day. It proposes a simple yet practical framework for taxi ride-sharing and scheduling, to reduce waiting times and travel times during peak demand periods. The solution method helps taxi users save money while helping taxi drivers serve multiple requests per day, thus increasing their earnings. A comprehensive simulation study is conducted, based on real taxi booking data for the city of Singapore, to evaluate the effect of various factors of the ride-sharing practice, e.g., …

The Adverse Environmental And Socio-Cultural Effects Of Tourism In Vietnam, Joshua Marx

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

An examination of the adverse environmental and socio-cultural impacts of tourism in Vietnam.

Disequilibrium Of Fire-Prone Forests Sets The Stage For A Rapid Decline In Conifer Dominance During The 21st Century, Josep M. Serra-Diaz, Charles Maxwell, Melissa S. Lucash, Robert M. Scheller, Danelle M. Laflower, Adam D. Miller, Alan J. Tepley, Howard E. Epstein, Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira, Jonathan R. Thompson

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

As trees are long-lived organisms, the impacts of climate change on forest communities may not be apparent on the time scale of years to decades. While lagged responses to environmental change are common in forested systems, potential for abrupt transitions under climate change may occur in environments where alternative vegetation states are influenced by disturbances, such as fire. The Klamath mountains (northern California and southwest Oregon, USA) are currently dominated by carbon rich and hyper-diverse temperate conifer forests, but climate change could disrupt the mechanisms promoting forest stability– regeneration and fire tolerance— via shifts in the fire regime in conjunction …

An Analysis Of Urban Heat Islands In Kentucky, Logan Mitchell

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The purpose of this research is to increase understanding of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in Kentucky by studying its three largest cities: Louisville, Lexington, and Bowling Green. By examining the UHIs of these three cities, two major attributes can be determined: if there is a relationship between the size of the city by population and the UHI magnitude, and if UHI magnitude follows any diurnal and/or seasonal cycles. Data was collected from weather stations within the three major cities, as well as from weather stations located in the rural areas surrounding them. The length of the time series …

Devonian Stromatoporoid Interactions At The Falls Of The Ohio State Park, Clarksville, Indiana, Morgan Sierra Hall

Undergraduate Theses

Stromatoporoids are calcitic sponges that occurred in the fossil record from the Early Ordovician to Late Devonian period. These sponges interacted with other organisms, especially rugose and tabulate corals. Some corals appear to benefit from the rigidity of stromatoporoids in response to turbulent waters. Stromatoporoids and many corals went extinct during the Frasnian-Famennian crisis when paleoenvironmental parameters were shifting. Studying the relationships between these taxa may provide insight to their vulnerability during the extinction.

This research was performed at the Falls of the Ohio in Clarksville, Indiana. Organisms in the Coral Zone were studied using transect sampling. Each fossil along …

The Santa Clara, 2018-04-26, Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara

No abstract provided.

An Assessment Of Atmospheric And Meteorological Factors Regulating Red Sea Phytoplankton Growth, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Mohamed A. Qurban, Emmanouil Proestakis, Michael J. Garay, Olga V. Kalishnikova, Vassilis Amiridis, Antonis Gkikas, Eleni Marinou, Thomas Piechota, K. P. Manikandan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

This study considers the various factors that regulate nutrients supply in the Red Sea. Multi-sensor observation and reanalysis datasets are used to examine the relationships among dust deposition, sea surface temperature (SST), and wind speed, as they may contribute to anomalous phytoplankton blooms, through time-series and correlation analyses. A positive correlation was found at 0–3 months lag between chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) anomalies and dust anomalies over the Red Sea regions. Dust deposition process was further examined with dust aerosols’ vertical distribution using satellite lidar data. Conversely, a negative correlation was found at 0–3 months lag between SST anomalies …

The Psychology Of Baseball: How The Mental Game Impacts The Physical Game, Kiera Dalmass

Honors Scholar Theses

The purpose of this study was to find whether or not sports psychology can be effective. Baseball was chosen as the sport for the study because baseball can be analyzed for nearly every single factor of the game, with the exception of the mental readiness or state of the player when he steps onto the field. It therefore provides the optimal atmosphere to provide clinical and statistical support to the field of sports psychology. Despite the various, numerous pieces of literature that praise and show support for sports psychology, there hasn’t been clinical research to support it. Additionally, multiple sports …

Freshwater Reservoir Offsets And Food Crusts: Isotope, Ams, And Lipid Analyses Of Experimental Cooking Residues, John P. Hart, Karine Taché, William A. Lovis

Publications and Research

Freshwater reservoir offsets (FROs) occur when AMS dates on charred, encrusted food residues on pottery predate a pot’s chronological context because of the presence of ancient carbon from aquatic resources such as fish. Research over the past two decades has demonstrated that FROs vary widely within and between water bodies and between fish in those water bodies. Lipid analyses have identified aquatic biomarkers that can be extracted from cooking residues as potential evidence for FROs. However, lacking has been efforts to determine empirically how much fish with FROs needs to be cooked in a pot with other resources to result …