Geography Commons^™

Index-Based Insurance And Risk Management Among Nomadic Mongolian Herders , Kelsey Larson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mongolian herders must contend with the risk of dzuds, harsh winters that can kill large numbers of livestock. To do so, they use a mixture of formal financial tools and traditional risk mitigation techniques. This paper is a study of the interaction between the Mongolian Index-based Livestock Insurance Program and traditional informal risk mitigation techniques. The researcher interviews herders in Bulgan soum, Arhangai aimag and Galuut soum, Bayanhongor aimag to compare the IBLI program’s impact in a community that has had IBLI since 2006 and one that only received IBLI in 2012. This study finds that insurance purchase is positively …

Utopias Misplaced: The Cost Of Outsourcing Dystopian Poetics To North Korea, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

This is a slightly revised version of the text of a talk that I (Seo-Young Chu) gave as part of the Fall 2014 Franke Lectures in the Humanities at Yale University. I'm sharing the text here to make the lecture more accessible. Topics include: North Korea/the DPRK, the "uncanny body politic," the uncanny valley, "dystopian poetics," what it means to outsource dystopian poetics, the intersection of aesthetics and politics. Authors/artists mentioned include: Thomas Hobbes, Mary Shelley, David Mitchell, Marjane Satrapi, Song Byeok, Sun Mu, Masahiro Mori, Andy Warhol. The talk also discusses the James Bond film Die Another Day.

The Importance Of Community Resilience: Developing The American Red Cross International Services Department In The New Hampshire Region, Sarah Romac

Capstone Collection

Disaster management and humanitarian aid organizations have had to reevaluate how communities and individuals can better adapt and prepare for future disaster events. One concept organizations are incorporating into their overall framework is strengthening community resilience. Increasing a community’s resilience level increases its ability to cope with the changes that affect it. Creating awareness of the vulnerabilities in an area, addressing these vulnerabilities with preparedness training, disaster risk reduction (DRR), and sustainable changes made over the long-term can develop a community’s adaptive capacity to be more resilient.

For my practicum, I was given the opportunity to be the International Services …

Water In The 21st Century, Grayson Michael Shor

Social Sciences

The aim of this research project is to provide a comprehensive and global analysis of water use in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive grasp of current and impending issues. The included five (5) chapters discuss water distribution, conservation, purification, law, international development, economic debates, ethical consideration, as well as educated estimations of the effects water related issues may cause in the next one-hundred years.

Diffusion And Learning: Twenty Years Of Sports Betting Culture In Finland, Matias Karekallas, Pauliina Raento, Taina Renkonen

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

How did people learn to bet on sports and how did a sports betting culture develop in Finland? How has this setting evolved over space and time? The answers contribute to the growing understanding of learning, socialization, and contextualization in the study of gambling and may inspire service providers, regulators, and harm preventers alike. We argue that broad structural patterns and micro-cultural processes should be investigated jointly and qualitative information should complement quantitative monitoring of human behavior. We approach the spread of sports betting to, and within Finland, from the perspective of innovation diffusion. We rely on this theory’s space- …

All That Sprawl, Y’All: An Analysis Of Development On Steinwehr Avenue And York Street In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, From 1971 To 2014, Elizabeth K. Emmons, Kalley S. Hansel, Daly Simpson

Student Publications

The advent of the automobile transformed the American landscape in the 20th century. In conjunction with the increasing importance of the automobile, numerous post-WW II government programs such as the Interstate Highway System encouraged suburban sprawl. Towns and cities adjacent to tourist attractions, known as gateway communities, face unique problems caused by sprawl. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is an example of a gateway community as it includes the Gettysburg National Military Park. Two study sites, portions of Steinwehr Avenue and York Street, were studied to analyze the effects of sprawl in Gettysburg. The sites were analyzed using ArcGIS, data compiled from historic …

Spreading The Char: The Importance Of Local Compatibility In The Diffusion Of Biochar Systems To The Smallholder Agriculture Community Context, Laura C. V. Munoz

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis enters the context of smallholder agriculture communities in the developing world. It explores the potentials of biochar and what biochar systems could bring to the smallholder communities while simultaneously bringing environmental benefits. It then acknowledges the challenges of diffusion –the spreading of an unfamiliar innovation. It seeks to answer the question of what will make diffusion of biochar systems more successful in the smallholder context, fixating on the characteristic of compatibility as well as the role local community members can play in making a new biochar system more visible to the rest of the communities.

The Relationship Of Goal Focus To Physical Distance, Job Title And Years Served Within The University Of Arkansas Division Of Agriculture, Christina Miller

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between physical distance from the headquarters, number of years working within the Division of Agriculture, and job title compared to mission statement and goal focus. The Division of Agriculture as part of the University of Arkansas System is a unique organization because many of its employees are not physically located at the headquarter locations of Little Rock and Fayetteville. The Cooperative Extension Service, part of the Division of Agriculture, has at least one office in each of Arkansas's 75 counties as well as faculty and staff members located at five …

Exploring The Neighborhood Preferences Of A Segment Of Millennials In Omaha, Nebraska, Aaron Kloke

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

In 2010, Millennials, or those between 18 and 34, surpassed the Baby Boomers in population size. Today, Millennials, also known as Generation Y, make up over 25 percent of the United States’ population. In Omaha, they make up 26.9 percent of the population. The next largest generation in Omaha, the Baby Boomers, make for 19.2 percent of the population. Clearly, this emerging demographic has the ability to change the way we create and design our built environment if it so chooses.

To review how this generation may choose to change the way we design our future neighborhoods, national trends were …

A Scalar Comparison Of Motivations And Expectations Of Experience Within The Religious Tourism Market, Daniel H. Olsen

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Academic studies on tourism market segmentation have decreased in scale over time, with the focus on tourist segmentation changing from segmenting the market as a whole to segmenting specific tourism niche markets. This change in scale can also be seen in how academics have attempted to segment the religious tourism market moving from discussions related to the pilgrim-tourist dichotomy to segmenting visitors based on religious affiliation to world regions and countries to specific religious activities such as religious festivals and infrastructural amenities such as hotels. In this paper the author, following Wall’s (1997) discussion of the spatial characteristics of tourist …

The Pilgrimage To The San Nicola Shrine In Bari And Its Impact, Katia Rizzello, Anna Trono

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is defined as a journey to the Holy but more specifically as an inner journey to one’s deepest religious feelings. This type of journey has assumed new forms and types that bring it closer to modern tourism in general, though it maintains its distinctive characteristics, which will be the object of this paper. These changes in the nature of pilgrimage, which in part reflect the parallel socio-cultural transformation of the average visitor, have brought about a major reorganisation of the places involved and have had a significant socio-economic impact on the territories involved. The concentration of visitors and in …

How Long Does The Pilgrimage Tourism Experience To Santiago De Compostela Last?, Lucrezia Lopez

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Tourism and pilgrimage are different social phenomena (Cohen, 1992; Collins-Kreiner, 2010a); tourism is more secular than pilgrimage, which is mainly a sacred journey (Barber, 2001). In spite of this, both indicate a ‘movement’; so that tourists and pilgrims are ‘foreigners, travellers and strangers’ (Smith, 1992) who look for authentic experiences (Collins-Kreiner, 2010a). The question: ‘What kind of Experience Pilgrimage is?’ has many answers. From a social point of view, pilgrims are free from social obligations; they share the same destination and the same social status. Because of this, the anthropologists Turner and Turner (1978) defined pilgrimage as an anti-structural experience …

Export Controls: A Contemporary History, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides highlights of my recently published book Export Controls: A Contemporary History. Describes the roles played by multiple U.S. Government agencies and congressional oversight committees in this policymaking arena including the Commerce, Defense, State, and Treasury Departments. It also reviews the roles played by international government organizations such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, export oriented businesses, and research intensive universities.

Land Management, U.S. Bureau Of, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview and current assessment of the role played by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management in its ownership of federal lands in western states and its efforts to balance economic development of natural resources and conservation of these resources on these lands.

Energy, U.S. Department Of, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides information about the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies and how DOE influences federal energy policy and scientific research in the western U.S.

Defense, U.S. Department Of, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides an overview of U.S. Department of Defense activities in the western U.S. including the military's increasing emphasis on Asia-Pacific strategic trends and developments.

Aridity, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides an overview of how aridity in the American West has influenced that region's economic, environmental, and political development and U.S. Government policies in this region.

Agriculture, U.S. Department Of, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a succinct organizational history of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its impact on the American West.

Subsidies, Agricultural, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides historical and contemporary information on U.S. Government agricultural subsidies and how they affect agricultural policy in the Western U.S.

Location And Competitive Strategy In Retail: The Case Of Gamestop In Michigan, Karl P. Schrantz

Masters Theses

The State of Michigan offers a unique retail environment that offers a diverse arena for firms to interact and compete in. The state has many cities of different size and a multitude of retail chains that operate within them. Over the past two decades this competition has become even stiffer with the rapid growth of big box retailers. In spite of this general notion there are often the less known stories of small retailers that have been able to compete and survive big box retailing. This research aims to assess how a smaller retail chain, GameStop in this case, is …

Building Social Capital Through Events: Some Insights From The Gathering, Ziene Mottiar, Bernadette Quinn, Theresa Ryan

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

New Silicon Valleys Or A New Species? Commoditization Of Knowledge Work And The Rise Of Knowledge Services Clusters, Stephan Manning

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

This paper explores knowledge services clusters (KSCs) as a distinct and increasingly important form of geographic cluster, in particular in emerging economies: KSCs are defined as geographic concentrations of lower-cost skills serving global demand for increasingly commoditized knowledge services. Based on prior research on clusters and services offshoring, and data from the Offshoring Research Network (ORN), major properties and contingencies of KSC growth are discussed and compared with both high-tech clusters and low-cost manufacturing clusters. Special emphasis is put on the ambivalent effect of commoditization of knowledge work on KSC growth: It is proposed that KSCs attract most projects if …

Critique Of Microcredit As A Development Model, Grace Levin

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

The field of microcredit (otherwise known as microfinance, microlending, or microcapital) has expanded rapidly since the 1980s as an economic means of lifting people out of poverty. Generally, microcredit has been accepted as an effective method for empowering both individuals and communities. In recent years, however, critics have brought to light some of the problems associated with microlending, such as the complex socioeconomic factors that can cause loan programs to fail. These problems stem from the basic tenet of microfinance: the need for lending programs to be managed locally in order to understand the needs of a community and assess …

Government Documents On Rare Earth Minerals, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Rare earth minerals contain unique chemical and physical properties such as lanthanum, are found in small concentrations, need extensive precise processes to separate, and are critical components of modern technologies such as laser guidance systems, personal electronics such as Blackberries, and satellites. The U.S. has some rare earth resources, but is heavily dependent on access to them from from Afghanistan, Bolivia, and China. Losing access to these resources would have significant economic, military, and political implications. This presentation will highlight government information resources on rare earth minerals from agencies such as the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), …

Enterprise Gis & Architecture, Nevin Gaudet

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Enterprise GIS solutions are becoming more attractive to companies to implement because of the ability to leverage system of record portals. Information is largely regarded as a company’s competitive advantage enabling organizational capability to operate and build capital and equity within a business. And with good reason large amounts of data and information are difficult to collect and organize within a digital framework. Building a GIS enterprise is a solution for data organization and management. Workflows must be in place to collect, process, calculate, and store data with high regard to timeliness and accuracy. Business decisions are made based on …

Review Of Daniel Mockli's "Strategic Trends 2012: Key Developments In Global Affairs, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This review essay describes and analyzes the content of this annual compilation of international affairs essays published by the Zurich-based Center for Strategic Studies.

Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration, Stephan Manning, Joerg Sydow, Arnold Windeler

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

This article examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) shape institutional conditions in emerging economies to secure access to high-skilled, yet lower-cost science and engineering talent. Based on two in-depth case studies of engineering offshoring projects of German automotive suppliers in Romania and China we analyze how MNCs engage in ‘active embedding’ by aligning local institutional conditions with global offshoring strategies and operational needs. MNCs thereby contribute to the structuration of field relations and practices of sourcing knowledge-intensive work from globally dispersed locations.Our findings stress the importance of institutional processes across geographic boundaries that regulate and get shaped by MNC activities.

The Effect Of Mortgage Liberalization On Housing Patterns In Tampa Bay, Jason Richardson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to determine whether the process of mortgage finance liberalization, manifested in concurrent activities of securitization, deregulation, and neo-liberal policy, have resulted in changes to the tenure of residents in neighborhoods in Tampa Bay. It makes use of existing literature on gentrification and mortgage finance and compares those findings with three sample neighborhoods in and around the city of Tampa. To do so the thesis employs data collected from lenders pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, court records of sales and mortgages filed with the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Hillsborough County, and interviews with stakeholders …

Review Of Remaking The Heartland: Middle America Since The 1950s. By Robert Wuthnow, Randolph Cantrell

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Shrinking farm numbers, population losses, and empty storefronts on Main Street have come to be seen as symptoms of an inevitable slide to oblivion for many Heartland communities. Empirical evidence of such decline is easily found, making the trend a favorite topic for journalists. In Remaking the Heartland, Robert Wuthnow offers a very different interpretation of the same trends. His central argument is that Middle America (defined as eight states including most of the Great Plains) has been characterized by adaptation to changing social and economic realities in a way that has made the region a "more vibrant contributor …

Functional Upgrading Through Research And Development In The Czech Automotive Industry, Petr Pavlinek, Jan Ženka, Pavla Žížalová

Geography and Geology Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Based on firm-level research and development (R&D) data, we evaluate the extent of functional upgrading in the Czech automotive industry between 1998 and 2008. The analysis draws on a unique database of 476 Czech-based automotive firms with 20 and more employees in the broadly defined automotive industry, a survey of 274 automotive firms and twenty-five in-depth company interviews. In addition to assessing changes in the extent of automotive R&D, we analyze the most important locational factors of automotive R&D in Czechia and its regional distribution in the country. We examine changes in the spatial concentration of automotive R&D between 1998 …