Geography Commons^™

Gis Suitability Analysis To Situate Recreational/Retail Marijuana Stores In Denver, Colorado, Aniekan Okon Akpanekong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

On October 1, 2013, the city of Denver adopted bill CB 570 allowing state-licensed retail marijuana businesses. Section 6-211(b) of the Denver Code of Ordinance codified distance separations between licensed retail marijuana sites and prohibited locations. Using distance decay theory coupled with Geographic Information systems (GIS)-based multicriteria analyses, Denver's licensed retail marijuana stores were evaluated in relation to their proximity compliance with �6-211(b). Using GIS topology testing from 1000 feet to 650 feet, current retail marijuana stores had a compliance percent ranging between 29% to 56% from each other, 2% to 7% from licensed medical marijuana stores, 39% to 68% …

Impact Of A Geography-Literature Collaborative On Secondary School Pedagogy, John Matthew Mccormick

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Geography education has been relegated to a subset of social studies standards in most of the United States and has been overshadowed by a history-centered curriculum. Student achievement in geography has not improved for several decades due to the focus on history content in the social studies curriculum. Rooted in a conceptual framework encompassing elements of self-efficacy and the whole teacher approach, the purpose of this case study was to examine the impact of the West Virginia Geographic Alliance (WVGA) professional development workshop on teachers' practices in delivering cross-disciplinary geography education. The research questions addressed teachers' perceived self-efficacy in delivering …

New Approach For Temporal Stability Evaluation Of Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites (Pics), Fatima Tuz Zafrin Tuli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites (PICS) are one of the most popular methods for in-flight vicarious radiometric calibration of Earth remote sensing satellites. The fundamental question of PICS temporal stability has not been adequately addressed. However, the main purpose of this work is to evaluate the temporal stability of a few PICS using a new approach. The analysis was performed over six PICS (Libya 1, Libya 4, Niger 1, Niger 2, Egypt 1 and Sudan 1). The concept of a “Virtual Constellation” was developed to provide greater temporal coverage and also to overcome the dependence limitation of any specific characteristic derived from …

Empirical Absolute Calibration Model For Multiple Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites, Bipin Raut

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work extends an empirical absolute calibration model initially developed for the Libya 4 Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Site (PICS) to five additional Saharan Desert PICS (Egypt 1, Libya 1, Niger 1, Niger 2, and Sudan 1), and demonstrates the efficacy of the resulting models at predicting sensor top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance. It attempts to generate absolute calibration models for these PICS that have an accuracy and precision comparable to or better than the current Libya 4 model, with the intent of providing additional opportunities for sensor calibration. In addition, this work attempts to validate the general applicability of the model to other …

Evaluation Of An Extended Pics (Epics) For Calibration And Stability Monitoring Of Optical Satellite Sensors, Md Nahid Hasan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pseudo Invariant Calibration Sites (PICS) have been increasingly used as an independent data source for on-orbit radiometric calibration and stability monitoring of optical satellite sensors. Generally, this would be a small region of land that is extremely stable in time and space, predominantly found in North Africa. Use of these small regions, referred to as traditional PICS, can be limited by: i) the spatial extent of an individual Region of Interest (ROI) and/or site; ii) and the frequency of how often the site can be acquired, based on orbital patterns and cloud cover at the site, both impacting the time …

Ua66/8/3 Ogden College Of Science & Engineering Geography & Geology Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Publications created by and about the Geography & Geology department.

China In The South China Sea: How Are Chinese Claims Portrayed In Media?, Chase Womack

Geography

No abstract provided.

Do You Believe In Ghost Apartments?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

According to the popular press, expensive cities are being overrun by "ghost apartments"- condominiums owned by wealthy foreigners, but used as investments rather than being rented out to local residents. This article points out that such apartments are in fact a very small percentage of housing supply, even in some cities that are supposedly overran with such condos. More importantly, the existence of new “ghost apartments” does not justify exclusionary zoning policies. If a city popular with foreign investors discourages construction of new housing, investors are likely to purchase older housing units, outbidding local residents for those units. In this …

Maroon Colonies And New Orleans Neutral Grounds: From A Protosuburban Past To A Postsuburban Future, Lynnell L. Thomas

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

This essay examines New Orleans maroon colonies as a precursor to the postsuburban constellations that shape the contemporary urban landscape. These communities served as the original neutral grounds where Africans, Afro-Creoles, and Native Americans created spaces beyond the purview of slave owners and government authorities. These protosuburban enclaves anticipated the vibrancy and prolificacy of the “global urban periphery” that Roger Keil describes in his research. They also inform twentieth- and twenty-first-century efforts by black New Orleanians to carve out their own urban neutral grounds: spaces resistant to the hegemonic forces of neoliberalism and neo-Bourbonism, as manifested in the traditions of …

Cliff-Top Dunes In The Lower Chippewa River Valley Of West-Central Wisconsin, Jason Millett

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate recently identified cliff-top sand dunes located within the Lower Chippewa River Valley (LCRV), Wisconsin, USA. Research within the LCRV notes the existence of a variety of aeolian deposits, but a comprehensive explanation of their complete spatial distribution, genesis, age, and paleoenvironmental significance does not exist. In particular, stabilized cliff-top dunes with a parabolic form remain poorly understood. This problem is exacerbated by a lack of clarity in the literature regarding the genesis of dunes in a cliff-top position. Therefore, this thesis begins by reviewing the literature concerning sand dunes in cliff-top …

Remote Sensing Of Planetary Boundary Layer Height And Particulate Matter 2.5 In New York State Mesonet Network, Bhupal Shrestha

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract:

Open Secrets, Congressional Oversight, And The Geopolitics Of The Cia Drone Program, Marita C. Murphy

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Analyzing four congressional hearings that publicly discuss the CIA’s ‘secret’ drone program, this thesis considers the interaction between publicity and secrecy in facilitating practices of later-modern warfare. Specifically, I examine the content of these drone hearings within the broader context of leaks, Obama administration speeches, and public interest in CIA drones to better understand how open secrecy engages with public oversight. I argue these hearings are deceptively productive. While they largely fail as oversight events, the hearings facilitate numerous unexpected outcomes—including the normalization and entrenchment of the CIA drone program. Paradoxically then, publicity proves essential to the maintenance and acceptance …

Visualizing Barrier Dune Topographic State Space And Inference Of Resilience Properties, Li-Chih Hsu

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

The linkage between barrier island morphologies and dune topographies, vegetation, and biogeomorphic feedbacks, has been examined. The two-fold stability domain (i.e., overwash-resisting and overwash-reinforcing stability domains) model from case studies in a couple of islands along the Georgia Bight and Virginia coast has been proposed to examine the resilience properties in the barrier dune systems. Thus, there is a need to examine geographic variations in the dune topography among and within islands. Meanwhile, previous studies just analyzed and compared dune topographies based on transect-based point elevations or dune crest elevations; therefore, it is necessary to further examine dune topography in …

Tropical Forest Canopy Height And Aboveground Biomass Estimation Using Airborne Lidar And Landsat-8 Data, A Sensitivity Study With Respect To Landsat-8 Data Temporal Availability, In Mai Ndombe Province, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Herve B. Kashongwe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tropical forests’ structure information, such as forest canopy height, is a key component in any estimate of carbon stock. Tropical rainforests constitute the most forested ecosystems that harbor the largest biodiversity on Earth and store more carbon (above and belowground biomass) than any other ecosystem in the world. However, estimates of forest canopy structure is lacking over most of the regions that host this ecosystem because of both the structure’s complexity of this ecosystems and the incomplete or lack of up-to-date national forest inventory data necessary to derive forest canopy height and aboveground biomass. This study explores the capability of …

An Analysis Of The Effect Of Tooth Wear On Bovid Identification, Juliet K. Brophy, Gregory J. Matthews, George K. Thiruvathukal

Faculty Publications

Previous research provides a method for reducing the subjectivity in taxonomic identification of species in the family Bovidae by quantifying the occlusal surface of molar teeth using elliptical Fourier analysis. In this current study, we specifically test what effect medium to late tooth wear has on the identification of bovids when using the form (size and shape) of the occlusal surface to classify specimens. To achieve this, the classification results of teeth with ≥85% of their occlusal surface (training data set) were compared with the results of teeth with 87% of the time with both Alcelaphini and Reduncini classifying correctly …

The Bioarchaeology Of The Tugalo Site (9st1): Diet, Disease, And Health Of The Past, Nompumelelo Beryl Hlophe

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Tugalo site is a prehistoric and early historic Native American site located in northeast Georgia along the upper Savannah River basin, near the junction of Toccoa Creek and the Tugalo River. According to archaeological materials analyzed from the site it was occupied from ca. A.D. 1100 to 1600 (Anderson et al. 1995). Although archaeological investigations of the site revealed basic characteristics of its chronology and architecture, very little analysis and reporting of the skeletal remains from Tugalo has been completed. By analyzing data collected by Williamson (1998) concerning the age and sex of the burials, the presence or absence …

Perceptions Of Vulnerability To Flooding, Hurricanes, And Climate Change On Grand Isle, Louisiana’S Only Inhabited Barrier Island, Lauren Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study used in-depth interviews of permanent residents on Grand Isle, Louisiana, a remote barrier island, to better understand their perceptions of structural flood measures, non-structural responses to flooding and hurricanes, and perceptions of vulnerability to flooding, hurricanes, and climate change on a remote barrier island-Grand Isle, Louisiana. Residents' perceptions regarding the various structural measures implemented by the federal, state, and local government appeared mixed. Non-structural responses to flooding risks implemented at the household, community, state, and federal level continue to strengthen resiliency on Grand Isle. According to interviewees, aspects of environmental, rural, and economic vulnerability on Grand Isle impact …

Utilizing Large Scale Datasets To Evaluate Aspects Of A Sustainable Bioeconomy, Gwanseon Kim

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation combines large scale datasets to evaluate crop prediction, land values, and consumption of a crop being considered to advance a sustainable bioeconomy. In chapter 2, we propose a novel application of the multinomial logit (MNL) model to estimate the conditional transition probabilities of crop choice for the state of Kentucky. Utilizing the recovered transition probabilities the forecast distributions of total acreages for alfalfa, corn, soybeans, tobacco, and wheat produced in the state from 2010 to 2015 can be recovered. The Cropland Data Layer is merged with the Common Land Unit dataset to allow for the identification of crop …

Improving Access To Clean Water In Rural Ecuador: The Connection Between Willingness To Pay And Population Health, Micalea Leaska

Capstone Collection

Climate change is affecting social and environmental determinants of health through access to safe drinking water, safely managed sanitation systems, and access to health care services and the ability for individuals to break free from unsuitable circumstances. Ecological disturbances such as those caused by climate change can cause a shift in host vectors or a change in habitat that results in a greater likelihood of the pathogen coming in contact with humans. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services and their accessibility to populations can directly impact a community’s vulnerability to diseases and limiting factors to increase economic growth. If rural …

Mapa De Cambios Climáticos Proyectados 2016 - 2039 En Las Fronteras Amazónicas Entre Ucayali Y Madre De Dios (Perú) Y Acre (Brasil), Gtaso, David S. Salisbury Et Al.

Geography and the Environment Maps

Mapa de Cambios Climáticos Proyectados 2016 - 2039 en las Fronteras Amazónicas entre Ucayali y Madre de Dios (Perú) y Acre (Brasil)

Map of Projected Climate Changes 2016 - 2039 in the Amazonian Borders between Ucayali and Madre de Dios (Peru) and Acre (Brazil)

Mapping Land Use Around The San Francisco Bay: A Look At Environmental Justice Through S. F. Bay Conservation And Development Commission’S Permitting History, Aviva R. Wolf-Jacobs

Pitzer Senior Theses

Planning and regulatory environmental agency San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) plays an important role in the permitting of development around the San Francisco Bay. As the agency works to add an environmental justice amendment to its primary policy document, this research explores the S.F. Bay Area’s history of approved development project proposal permits, and the associated patterns of land use and environmental justice implications in order to support the proposed change in permitting policy. By classifying all major permits found within BCDC’s internal permit database into groups based on the type of land use associated with the …

“We Are Women And Men Now”: Intimate Spaces And Coping Labour For Syrian Women Refugees In Jordan, Karen Culcasi

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

War affects women from the bedroom to the battlefield, but for most women war is experienced within intimate spaces. Intimate spaces are rarely the focus of mainstream academic research or media reporting; thus women's experiences with war and displacement are often concealed. Building from literature in feminist geopolitics that helps focus our attention toward everyday and intimate geopolitics, I conducted in‐depth interviews with Syrian women refugees in Jordan in order to examine how they are coping. Of the many ways that they've learned to cope, these women asserted that earning an income and adjusting to altered gender performances and relations …

Evaluation Of Sampling And Cross-Validation Tuning Strategies For Regional-Scale Machine Learning Classification, Christopher A. Ramezan, Timothy A. Warner, Aaron E. Maxwell

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

High spatial resolution (1–5 m) remotely sensed datasets are increasingly being used to map land covers over large geographic areas using supervised machine learning algorithms. Although many studies have compared machine learning classification methods, sample selection methods for acquiring training and validation data for machine learning, and cross-validation techniques for tuning classifier parameters are rarely investigated, particularly on large, high spatial resolution datasets. This work, therefore, examines four sample selection methods—simple random, proportional stratified random, disproportional stratified random, and deliberative sampling—as well as three cross-validation tuning approaches—k-fold, leave-one-out, and Monte Carlo methods. In addition, the effect on the accuracy of …

Submarine Groundwater Discharge Data At Meter Scale (223ra, 224ra, 226ra, 228ra And 222rn) In Indian River Bay (Delaware, Us), Carlos Duque, Karen L. Knee, Christopher J. Russoniello, Mahmound Sherif, Usama A. Abu Risha, Neil C. Sturchio, Holly A. Michael

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Abstract

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) was sampled at high-spatial resolution in Indian River Bay, DE, USA, in July 2016 to characterize the spatial variability of the activity of the radium and radon isotopes commonly used to estimate SGD. These data were part of an investigation into the methods and challenges of characterizing SGD rates and variability, especially in the coastal aquifer transition from freshwater to saltwater (Hydrogeological processes and near shore spatial variability of radium and radon isotopes for the characterization of submarine groundwater discharge (Duque et al., 2019)). Samples were collected with seepage meters and minipiezometers to obtain sufficient …

Defining Boundaries: How A City And County Addressed Legalized Recreational Marijuana, Tera Kathleen Hinkley-Bressi

Geography Masters Research Papers

In 2012 Washington state voters legalized recreational marijuana; local jurisdictions retained the option to ban recreational marijuana production, processing, and/or retail sales. Licenses for marijuana business could be distributed by the state to licensees in areas where local laws prohibited the business. This disconnect prompted legal battles between local governments and would-be business owners, as exemplified in the central Washington county of Yakima and the county seat, the city of Yakima. After a series of state policy changes and local community outcry, the city of Yakima reversed its initial ban, while the county continued prohibition. This paper explores issues underlying …

Setting The Stage: Resident Experiences With Enforcement, Rescue And Spectacle In Lampedusa, Elisa Sperandio

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Located 127 miles from the shores of Sicily and only 70 from Tunisia, the island of Lampedusa is home to a population of 6000. Residents are largely reliant on a centuries-old fishing economy, a booming tourism industry and, most recently, the sustainment of a complex apparatus of border enforcement. Since the early 2000s, with the hardening of the southern border of Italy and the European Union, a multitude of actors have converged to Lampedusa: from migrants, to agents of enforcement, to NGO personnel, along with journalists, researchers and tourists. In this thesis, I center the experiences of island residents to …

Unsettling Refuge: Syrian Refugees’ Account Of Life In Denmark, Malene H. Jacobsen

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This doctoral dissertation examines the lived experiences of refuge in Denmark from the perspectives of Syrian refugees. Situated within feminist political geography, it moves beyond examining geopolitics merely from the perspective of the law, the state, and policy makers. Instead, it seeks to grasp the ways in which geopolitics are encountered, experienced, and negotiated on the ground – by the people who are most affected by state policies and practices. It draws on more than ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Denmark with Syrian refugees, including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observations, as well as interviews with state and …

Poéticas Minimalistas De La Ciudad Contemporánea: Iribarren, Mínguez Y Del Val, David Delgado López

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Throughout the Spanish poetic production of the 20^th century, cities have developed a relevant role as a recurring space at the same time as society urbanized and an exodus took place from agricultural areas to the work centers offered by the cities. Since the second half of the 19^th century the city has been the meeting place for people from different backgrounds where the poet found, from his exclusive point of view, a new universe to develop in his work. However, the evolution of capitalist society sponsored the poet's transition from an artist to a worker in the …

Essays On Institutions And Development, Andrew Jonelis

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

The essays in this dissertation examine how political institutions affect economic development. In the first essay, I examine how executive control of the legislature shapes the time horizon of governing politicians and its effect on economic growth. The second essay examines how border changes over the past two centuries have provided different areas within modern countries with different institutional histories and how this affects the geographic concentration of economic activity. For the final essay, I examine whether elections have an effect on macroeconomic volatility when controlling for the democratic nature of the regime.

Boundaries And Policing: Space, Jurisdictions, And Roles In The Collection Of Official Crime Data, Cynthia Suzanne Barnett-Ryan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is a law enforcement statistical system open to unreported information due to its voluntary nature. As such, there need to be a valid and accepted means to estimate official reports of crime for those different levels of geography where reporting may be incomplete. Current methods of imputing and modeling UCR data, which have not been updated since the 1960s, are based upon conceptualizations of law enforcement agencies that may no longer be valid. These older models do not appropriately represent the law enforcement assessment of space and place and its effects on discretionary recording …