Geography Commons^™

Sparse Coding Based Dense Feature Representation Model For Hyperspectral Image Classification, Ender Oguslu, Guoqing Zhou, Zezhong Zheng, Khan Iftekharuddin, Jiang Li

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a sparse coding based dense feature representation model (a preliminary version of the paper was presented at the SPIE Remote Sensing Conference, Dresden, Germany, 2013) for hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. The proposed method learns a new representation for each pixel in HSI through the following four steps: sub-band construction, dictionary learning, encoding, and feature selection. The new representation usually has a very high dimensionality requiring a large amount of computational resources. We applied the l₁/l_q regularized multiclass logistic regression technique to reduce the size of the new representation. We integrated the method with a linear …

Storm Preparedness: A Case Study Of Delaware County, Indiana, Junfeng Jiao, Timothy R. Phelps, Yuan Li

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Communities throughout the world have to prepare to handle severe weather. The United States sees an especially high number of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms east of the Rocky Mountains. The State of Indiana often ranks among the highest number of tornadoes per square mile, requiring counties to be prepared for storms and severe weather. This research uses ArcGIS to analyze the effectiveness of Delaware County, Indiana, in severe weather warning. Looking at the distribution of emergency equipment, this research showed that Delaware County is well suited to handle emergency storm situations, with only Yorktown being insufficient in the distribution of …

O Espaço Como Palavra-Chave / Space As A Keyword, David Harvey

Publications and Research

Neste artigo, David Harvey discute teoricamente “espaço” como uma palavra-chave, associando a visão tripartite espaço absoluto-relativo-relacional com a leitura lefebvreana dos espaços percebido, concebido e vivido (também denominados espaços material ou experimentado, conceitualizado e da representação).

David Harvey in this article discuss theoretically “space”as a keyword, by associating the tripartite approach absolute-relative-relational space with Lefebvre’s view of perceived, conceived andlived spaces (also called material or experienced space, conceptua-lized space and spaces of representation

A People’S Atlas Of Muncie: Citizen Representations Of Urban Space, Junfeng Jiao, Steven M. Radil, Jenna Harbin, Yuan Li

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are an essential tool for analyzing and representing spatial information. The integration of GIS with qualitative research techniques can create new ways to represent data with multiple meanings incorporated, and drive change in communities and social actions. This project used mental mapping as a tool to collect data and insight from community members around Muncie, Indiana, and to introduce students to a different way of collecting data. By using these methods, students were able to get a better understanding of valuable research tools while collecting necessary data for the Muncie neighborhoods base future plans.

Human Consequences Of Climate Change, Climate Refugees: An Exploratory Essay, Frederick A. Snyder-Manetti

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

While planning my course schedule for the 2009 Spring Semester, I found myself desperately short of elective credits toward my Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography in order to graduate by the end of the 2010 Autumn Semester. From the limited course choices offered for the spring semester, only two worked with the other required courses I needed as well: Cultural & Global Competence and Global Hot Spots. Little did I know at the time, but the latter would prove to be the most stimulating course of my entire undergraduate geography program. Not only did this course forge within me …

The History And Evolution Of North American Ski Resort Map Style And Design, Amy Elizabeth Lippus

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The first official ski resort in North America opened to the public in 1936 in Sun Valley, Idaho. Today, there are over 400 resorts across the continent in constant competition with one another for customers. Ski maps were first introduced as navigational tools, but quickly became a means for advertising what the resorts had to offer. The desire to outshine rival resorts has produced thousands of unique ski maps over the years, forming a collection of maps that has never been comprehensively analyzed until now. The first phase of the thesis involved the gathering of historical and modern ski maps …

‘Water Is Life’: Exploring The Relationship Between Place Identity, Water And Adaptive Capacity In Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories, Canada, Jennifer A. Fresque-Baxter

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Water is recognised as a fundamental human right in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT). However, the current and potential effects of climate change coupled with resource development pressures are leading to concerns about maintaining the health and viability of freshwater in the NWT. These intersecting multiple exposures can have far-reaching impacts for NWT residents who rely on water for cultural, spiritual, economic and social purposes. Ongoing changes (e.g., to water quantity, water quality, weather, precipitation and ice dynamics, for example) will increasingly require NWT residents to adapt, seek ways to plan for the future, identify opportunities, and moderate the effects of …

An Analysis Of Quality For Volunteered Geographic Information, Joel C H Meier

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In recent years there has been a growing number of online user communities engaged in the creation, visualization, and use of volunteered geographic information (VGI). These data may represent an untapped resource for researchers analyzing large-area geographic phenomena such as species distributions patterns or land and resource management issues. However very few studies have used VGI for analytic research questions as little is known about the quality of these data. An understanding of the validity of VGI is a prerequisite for further exploitation of these novel data sources in research contexts. This paper looks to identify key issues related to …

Pushing The Limits: International Land Acquisitions In Comparative Perspective, Ariane Goetz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The role of investor countries in large-scale land acquisitions is poorly understood in the contemporary “land grab” literature. Orthodox explanations largely build on deductive analyses that deviate from the emerging empirical evidence, and/or face analytical difficulties when trying to capture why large-scale land acquisitions happen. This thesis investigates the global phenomenon of “land grabbing” from the comparative perspective of two major investor countries: the UK and China. The regional focus is on Sub-Saharan Africa, a major target of land-consuming investments since 2000.

The dissertation advances three arguments: Firstly, the specific details of the home country’s industrial set-up, development challenges, ideological …

Affective Migration: The Role Of Food Preparation And Visceral Experience For Egyptian Migrant Women Settling In The Region Of Waterloo, Mary Neil

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study examining Egyptian migrants settling in Canada is exploratory in nature and is intended to initiate a conversation about the personal experience of transnationalism and the value of the body as an instrument of research. A semi-structured interview approach was designed to prompt the evocation of deep personal thoughts, experiences, and sensations in response to questions surrounding migration to Canada through the shared performative act of cooking and the visceral experience of eating in the private space of the migrant kitchen. Using a grounded theory approach, several adaptive mechanisms were identified such as the creation of manageable daily routines, …

Exploring Daily Dietary Behaviour Through Examination Of The Food Choice Process, Ivy Dam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As obesity rates continue to rise, the negative health impacts associated with unhealthy food choice behaviour remain an issue of concern. Observing the connection between food consumption and weight gain alone is likely not sufficient to understanding people’s construction of food choices. More detailed examination of a novel concept, the overall food choice process (FCP), including food thoughts, plans, purchases, and preparation, leading up to food intake/consumption may contribute to an improved understanding of food choice behaviour.

This thesis explored the wider FCP that gives rise to observed food consumption by testing passive video recording technologies, …

Exploring The Moments And Memory Of Tourist Experiences In Peru, Sarah Quinlan Cutler

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Tourist experiences offer anomalous and complex interactions between tourists and tourism places. The study of these experiences is the focus of this doctoral dissertation, which aims to explore subjective aspects of the tourist experience. This exploration involves the conceptualisation of tourist experiences and the development of a multi-phased research design that captures the perceptions of momentary in situ experiences and examines how these perceptions change over time.

The dissertation addresses under studied areas in tourism and answers calls for research into immediate conscious experiences and tourist centred methodology. This investigation into tourist experiences involves 21 participants who took an educational …

Tentative Securities: 26/11, Israel And The Politics Of Mobility, Rhys A. Machold

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the global mobility of security knowhow in relation to the management of terrorism in megacities. Specifically, it offers three insights. First, it shows how historical events are performed as sites in need of transnational policy intervention. Second, it enables an understanding of how and why the sourcing of policy ‘models’ actually takes place. Third, it sheds light on how mobile policy schemes travel geographically and are put to work in particular contexts. In doing so, it elaborates on the conditions under which policies move geographically but also addresses the kinds of constraints and contradictions they face.

The …

A Critical Review Of Ontario’S Blue Box Program: Identifying And Testing Best Practices In Printed Paper And Packaging Recycling, Calvin Lakhan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation undertook a critical review of four recycling policies used in Ontario which are designed to promote household waste diversion and reduce material management costs. These policies include:

1) Municipal funding should be directly tied to program performance relative to their peer group. 2) All municipalities should make investments in recycling promotion and education, and will be reimbursed $1 per household for all recycling promotion and education expenditures

3) Where possible, municipalities should implement pay as you throw schemes for household waste as a means to minimize the amount of material being disposed of in the waste stream.

4) …

Spacial Analysis Of Foreclosure And Neighborhood Characteristics In Miami Metropolitan Area, Florida, Adejoh Emmanuel Ogbe

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In 2013, the State of Florida had 13 of the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) with the highest foreclosure rate in the country. Despite the high ranking, extensive research on foreclosure has yet to be carried out within the Miami-Fort LauderdalePompano Beach MSA. This research is a foray into an uncharted territory to understand the relationship between foreclosure and neighborhood characteristics in the Miami metropolitan area (MMA) within Miami-Dade County. The study was conducted in two phases: The first phase was to identify the foreclosure pattern in the MMA from 2010- 2013 by implementing the use of spatial analysis …

Spaces Of Disadvantage, Places Of Hope : Women Empowerment, Economic Emancipation And Ngos In Bogotá Slums, Ekaterina Korzh

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This research is devoted to the gender issue in Colombian Slums with the specific focus on the social and economic place of women, challenges that women are facing within this extremely impoverished and criminalized areas and avenues to improve women empowerment and emancipation in the slums of Bogotá.

The goal of this research is to improve understanding of social and economic roles of women in the slums and identify NGO-supported coping strategies that allow improving women empowerment and emancipation in the slums of Bogotá. The first objective is to define “slums” and determine their extent, morphology and population characteristics using …

Sacred And Mortuary Landscapes In Iron Age Cyprus: A Gis Analysis, James P. Torpy

Senior Independent Study Theses

During the Archaic period (750-480 BC) the island of Cyprus underwent a dramatic transformation as new city-kingdoms rose to dominate the political landscape of the island. This shift resulted in increased competition for resources, establishment of political boundaries, and emergence of a pronounced social hierarchy within the new polities. While many of the large settlements that became centers of power during this time have been thoroughly studied, the manifestation of the large scale changes of the Archaic in the periphery have not been as fully investigated. The rural site of Athienou-Malloura, surveyed and excavated by the Athienou Archaeological Project …

Geography Standard Posters: Places And Regions, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University

Instructional Materials

The poster looks at the physical and human characteristics of place, how people create regions, and the culture influences people's perceptions.

Geography Standard Posters: The World In Spatial Terms, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University

Instructional Materials

The poster looks at how to use maps, using mental maps, and how to analyze spatial organization.

Patterns Of Consumption: Ceramic Residue Analysis At Liangchengzhen, Shandong, China, Rheta E. Lanehart

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to identify the different patterns of food consumption across space and time at Liangchengzhen, a Longshan (ca. 2600-1900 B.C.) site located in Shandong Province, China. The primary hypothesis of the research contended that evidence of increasing social inequality with respect to food consumption would be found from early to late phases at Liangchengzhen. In addition, rice and meat from mammals, especially pigs, were hypothesized as the most likely types of prestigious foods for daily and ritual activities. Fish and marine foods in general were hypothesized to be foods that average households could obtain since …

Glaciological Applications Of Terrestrial Radar Interferometry, Denis Voytenko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrestrial Radar Interferometry (TRI) is a relatively new ground-based technique that combines the precision and spatial resolution of satellite interferometry with the temporal resolution of GPS. Although TRI has been applied to a variety of fields including bridge and landslide monitoring, it is ideal for studies of the highly-dynamic terminal zones of marine-terminating glaciers, some of which are known to have variable velocities related to calving and/or ocean-forced melting. My TRI instrument is the Gamma Portable Radar Interferometer, which operates at 17.2 GHz (1.74 cm wavelength), has two receiving antennas for DEM (digital elevation model) generation, and images the scenes …

A Composite Spatial Model Incorporating Groundwater Vulnerability And Environmental Disturbance To Guide Land Management, Johanna L. Kovarik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has long recognized and studied the dynamics of groundwater processes. More recently, groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are being recognized for their diversity and vulnerability to anthropogenic impact. Groundwater in karst landscapes presents a distinctive situation where flow through the subsurface often moves rapidly on the scale of days and weeks as opposed to years or millennia in other systems. This distinctive situation of karst systems and their vulnerability to human impacts necessitate an integrated and multifaceted approach for the management of these important resources. However, development of such an approach is complicated by the difficulty of obtaining detailed data …

Quantifying The Interaction Of Wildlife And Roads: A Habitat And Movement Approach, Rebecca Whitehead Loraamm

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a growing need to address the effects of roadway presence on wildlife. Not only do roads directly impact gene dispersal from a movement perspective, but they limit movement of the individual animal from a habitat perspective by presenting an artificial barrier between one area of viable habitat and another. For this reason it is becoming increasingly important to quantify contact between humans and wildlife and to develop better methods for mitigating these types of conflicts. Studying habitat connectivity and animal mobility in the context of roads can provide actionable information on how, where, and when these encounters might …

Geo-Based Technologies, Tourists And Bushfires In Northern Australia, Donnell Holloway, David Holloway, Lelia Green

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper analyses how the use of geo-based technologies can play a role in the safety of tourism operations and tourist travel — especially in the case of bushfires. The study uses data from 42 qualitative interviews with tourists, tourism operators and other stakeholders in the remote Kununurra area of Western Australia carried out in 2012 and 2013. We contend that the spatiotemporal nature of tourism has stimulated considerable development in a range of geo - based technologies. The paper argues that geo-based technologies are an integral part of fire suppression and mitigation practices, and that tourists’ familiarity with geo-based …

Spatial And Temporal Patterns (1973-2012) Of Bushfire In An Arid To Semi-Arid Region Of Western Australia, Megan Ladbrook

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Aim and background

The aim of this study was to reconstruct fire regimes/history of an extensive arid to semi-arid region of Western Australia for the last 40 years by studying temporal and spatial fire scar patterns using remote sensing in a Geographic Information System environment.

Methods

A fire history database was constructed, for the years 1973-2012 of an area of Western Australia between the Murchison and Minilya Rivers, of all bushfires greater than 1 ha that were visible from Landsat satellite imagery ranging from 30 – 60m ground resolution. The data was analysed to characterise a general bushfire regime for …