Geography Commons^™

Policing The Project: Crime, Carcerality, And Chicago Public Housing, Madeleine Rose Hamlinn

Dissertations - ALL

This project examines how Chicago's public housing was policed from 1937 to 2000, when the city announced plans to redevelop public housing into privately-owned mixed-income communities under the Plan for Transformation. Drawing upon interviews, historical newspapers, and archival records, it centrally argues that policing contributed to making public housing into a carceral space: one that resembled the prison in design and management and also funneled residents into the criminal-legal system. Writing against popular narratives of public housing as an inherent site of crime and violence, this project instead positions the police—and, by extension, the state—as a central contributor to violence …

Reimagine Fire Science For The Anthropocene, Jacquelyn K. Shuman, Jennifer K. Balch, Rebecca T. Barnes, Philip E. Higuera, Andres Holz, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fire is an integral component of ecosystems globally and a tool that humans have harnessed for millennia. Altered fire regimes are a fundamental cause and consequence of global change, impacting people and the biophysical systems on which they depend. As part of the newly emerging Anthropocene, marked by human-caused climate change and radical changes to ecosystems, fire danger is increasing, and fires are having increasingly devastating impacts on human health, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Increasing fire danger is a vexing problem that requires deep transdisciplinary, trans-sector, and inclusive partnerships to address. Here, we outline barriers and opportunities in the next …

Efficiency In The Upper Deschutes Basin: Understanding The Hydrosocial Implications Of Irrigation Canal Piping, Rebecca Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

In response to water scarcity, irrigation efficiency projects aim to conserve water for in-stream flow and agricultural use. Piping irrigation canals is a common irrigation efficiency method which reduces the loss of incidental recharge, resulting in trade-offs within a hydrosocial system. Few studies have focused on the consequences of canal piping and none have integrated a critical analysis of the social factors involved in deciding what constitutes 'efficient' water use. This study seeks to fill this gap by combining natural and social science to give attention to the scales and perspectives involved in irrigation efficiency canal piping and the material …

Quantifying Human Mobility Patterns During Disruptive Events With Geospatial Big Data, Yuqin Jiang

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding human mobility patterns is an essence for geography and geographical information science. Although existing studies have found that human mobility patterns are highly predictable, such patterns can be disrupted by events, ranging from sports games to natural hazard caused evacuations. However, traditional data collection methods that heavily rely on self-reported travel behaviors are often delayed and at a small scale, and thus are often not sufficient to reveal the disrupted human mobility patterns. Fortunately, with the development of geolocating-related technologies, multiple platforms are able to capture human mobility data in unprecedented spatiotemporal scales and granularities. These data, such as …

Combining Precipitation Forecasts And Vegetation Health To Predict Fire Risk At Subseasonal Timescale In The Amazon, Katia Fernandes, Michael Bell, Angel Munoz

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Current forecast systems provide reliable deterministic forecasts at the scale of weather (1-7 days) and probabilistic outcomes at the scale of seasons (1-9 months). Only in recent years research has begun transitioning to operational settings to provide numerical predictions for a lead time of 2-4 weeks, a timescale known as subseasonal. The Subseasonal Experiment (SubX) multi-model ensemble mean precipitation forecast (2017-2021) for days 8-14 (week-2 forecast) is used as a covariate in logistic regression models to predict fire risk in the Amazon. In a complementary experiment, a vegetation health index (VHI) is added to SubX precipitation forecasts as a predictor …

Neighborhood Change On The Mississippi Coast After Hurricane Katrina (2006 – 2019), Margot Habets

Theses and Dissertations

Hurricane Katrina was a historic event, forever changing many lives as well as altering impacted communities in the short and long term. In the fifteen years since the storm, patterns of damage, recovery programs and dollars, and existing neighborhood change have altered demographics in coastal Mississippi. This thesis investigates how population, median age, race, and education demographics have changed at the census tract level in the fourteen years since Hurricane Katrina (2006-2019) compared to pre-Katrina trends (1990-2000). A moving average using American Community Survey data as well as interval changes measure how different neighborhoods have been altered since the storm. …

Southwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Development Classification Utilizing Machine Learning And Synoptic Composites, Rupsa Bhowmick, Jill C. Trepanier, Alex M. Haberlie

Faculty Publications

This study evaluates the ability of machine learning algorithms to classify tropical depressions (TDs) and tropical storms (TSs) in the western region of the southwest Pacific Ocean (SWPO). Decision rules are generated to predict the environment required for a depression to fully develop into a mature storm, and the most influential predictors in the classification decision are ranked. TD and TS are discriminated based on a maximum sustained wind speed threshold (≥17 ms−1). Various aerosol, thermodynamic, and dynamic parameters are extracted closest to the initiation point of each non-developing and developing sample. The covariates associated with each labelled sample are …

Commemorating The Past: Nebraska Museum Practices In Interpreting, Memorializing, And Mythologizing History, Carissa Dowden

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Commemorative landscapes are spaces that have a symbolic meaning to a group of people and are often identified by a government or by a local community. These landscapes act as “symbolic conduits” to both express and legitimize interpretations of the past, though geographic interpretations are largely limited to the American South and Europe (Alderman and Dywer 2012). This research seeks to better understand landscapes of commemoration and memorialization in Nebraska, specifically how memories of the West and pioneers are constructed and represented within heritage and history institutions. Applying methods in geography, public history and digital humanities, this research considers both …

Characterizing And Explaining Prevalence And Factors Associated With Non-Fatal Opioid Overdose In Florida, Jesse M. Bell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many factors contribute to the opioid epidemic in Florida, including, but not limited to, physician over prescribing, opioid manufacturer malfeasance (direct marketing to physicians, hospitals, and universities, as well indirect political contributions, and deliberately obfuscating the impact of the addictive properties of their various drugs), and as the epidemic approaches its 25th year, sociodemographic characteristics. This body of work examines three of these. First, because an opioid naïve persons’ typical initial encounter with the drug is through a physician, we sought to shed light on the impact of direct pharmaceutical marketing to physicians. We identified opioid providing physicians from the …

“Why Do They Have To Laugh At Me?”: Stereotypes And Prejudices Experienced By Immigrant Youth, Darlene Rodriguez, Lina Tuschling, Paul Mcdaniel

Faculty Articles

When immigrating to a new host country, the overall integration process for immigrant youth and refugees can be taxing, as experiences with prejudice and discrimination are likely to occur. This article highlights the role of contact and social identity in reducing biases such as stereotypes or prejudice for immigrant youth using the contact hypothesis. Then, we apply the contact hypothesis to twenty-five essays written by immigrant youth in Atlanta, Georgia, and analyse the essays in order to understand their attitudes and emotions before, during, and after the migration process. Further, the article addresses immigrant youth expectations and challenges during the …

Junk Food Accessibility After 10 Years Of A Restrictive Food Environment Zoning Policy Around Schools, Lindsey Soon, Jason Gilliland, Leia M. Minaker

Geography & Environment Publications

Zoning has been proposed as a way of reducing unhealthy food access for youth, but little research has evaluated outcomes of proposed or existing junk food bans, and even less research has considered equity implications of such zoning policies. In this simulation study, set in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario (Canada), we examined how secondary student access to fast food restaurants and convenience stores would change under such a policy over 10 years in a mid-sized Canadian municipality. Outcomes are presented by school-level advantage (derived from the proportion of students in equity-deserving subgroups: low income, students who speak English …

Erasure Through Engagement: The Community Resettlement Of Isle De Jean Charles, Meghan Elizabeth Sullivan

Dissertations and Theses

The State of Louisiana and the national media have claimed that the community resettlement of Isle de Jean Charles (IDJC) is an example of a 'model resettlement' for communities experiencing the impacts of climate change. At the outset, the project was advocated and led by the tribal leadership of the Isle de Jean Charles Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe. Although, through the course of the resettlement the supposed partnership between the State of Louisiana and the Tribe has dissolved. This study seeks to provide a robust and in-depth understanding of the planning and implementation process of the IDJC resettlement to …

Differentiating Fissure-Fed Lava Flow Types And Facies Using Radar And Lidar: An Example From The 2014–2015 Holuhraun Lava Flow-Field, Gavin Douglas Tolometti, Catherine D. Neish, Christopher W. Hamilton, Gordon R. Osinski, Antero Kukko, Joana R.C. Voigt

Earth Sciences Publications

Distinguishing between lava types and facies using remote sensing data is important for interpreting the emplacement history of lava flow-fields on Earth and other planetary bodies. Lava facies typically include a mixture of lava types and record the collective emplacement history of material preserved at a particular location. We seek to determine if lava facies in the 2014–2015 Holuhraun lava flow-field are discernible using radar roughness analysis. Furthermore, we also seek to distinguish between lava types using high resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. We extracted circular polarization ratios (CPR) from the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar and …

Evaluation Of Measurement Data Across Eight Gis Basemaps Using Drumlins: Combining Basemaps Is Optimal, Gretchen A. Wambach, Alexander K. Stewart

The Compass: Earth Science Journal of Sigma Gamma Epsilon

Choosing the best basemap for landform data collection and analysis is fundamental for accurate measurements and usability. Different types of basemaps may affect how we perceive relief through a map (Phillips et al., 1975); thereby, affecting the precision of data collected. This project collected length and azimuth data of 60 drumlins in Western, NY from four different, ArcGIS online (AGOL)-provided basemaps, as well as two parallel-to-strike and two perpendicular-to-strike hillshades (n=4). Testing the mean length (1,662m, ±529) and azimuth (171°, ±0.3) data for uniformity across basemaps determined if any basemap is more or less reliable for data collection. The Terrain …

Gigapan® Photogrammetry For Outcrop Description, 3d Modeling, And 3d Printing, Preston Liles, Logan Pearson, Samantha Barnett, Dakota G. Simpson, David B. Fitzpatrick, Erik B. Larson, Maurice Testa

The Compass: Earth Science Journal of Sigma Gamma Epsilon

The collection of 3D information on geological media is fundamental for field geology, however it can be both time consuming and expensive. This report proposes a new method for the collection of 3D information of outcrops using simple to use and inexpensive technology. GigaPan® systems can be used to take high resolution images of outcrops and these images then be either left in 2D for additional description of the outcrop in the lab, or they can be processed in Autodesk 3ds Max® to create realistic 3D models of the outcrops which can then be 3D printed. The collection of this …

Borders: A Story Of Political Imagination, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

This article traces three different political imaginaries about borders, suggesting that the dominant imaginary—the one of border walls, driven by a fear of invasion—is only one way to live in the world. The goal is to make space in our political imaginations to rethink how we live together, including thinking beyond nation-states as containers that keep people in or out. By first showing how the vision of invasion is built and maintained with intersecting transnational technologies and ideologies, I open the way to thinking otherwise. Second, I trace the counterpolitics of borders developed by artists and activists, resisting borders and …

Machine Learning With Kay, Lasith Niroshan, James Carswell

Conference Papers

Computational power is very important when training Deep Learning (DL) models with large amounts of data (Wooldridge, 2021). Hence, High-Performance Computing (HPC) can be leveraged to reduce computational cost, and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) provides significant infrastructure and services for research and development to both academia and industry. A portion of ICHEC's HPC system has been allocated for institutional access, and this paper presents a case study of how to use Kay (Ireland's national supercomputer) in the remote sensing domain. Specifically, this study uses clusters of Kay Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for training DL models to extract …

Intersecting Mobilities: Beyond The Autonomy Of Movement And Power Of Place, Miriam Ticktin, Rafi Youatt

Publications and Research

It is widely understood that we live in a world where people, goods, species, and things of all sorts are on the move, and that the politics around mobility and its regulation and meaning are critical to contemporary political and social life. Human migration has been globally intensive for well over a century; industrial economic production, consumption, and trade move goods around the world; transportation infrastructure moves all sorts of cargo around, human and nonhuman; regular and irregular ecological processes and changes are creating new patterns of nonhuman movement; variants of viruses race around the world; even geological elements are …

Regional And Elevational Patterns Of Extreme Heat Stress Change In The Us, Colin Raymond, Duane E. Waliser, Bin Guan, Huikyo Lee, Paul Loikith, Elias C. Massoud, Agniv Sengupta, Deepti Singh, Adrienne Wootten

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Increasing severity of extreme heat is a hallmark of climate change. Its impacts depend on temperature but also on moisture and solar radiation, each with distinct spatial patterns and vertical profiles. Here, we consider these variables' combined effect on extreme heat stress, as measured by the environmental stress index, using a suite of high-resolution climate simulations for historical (1980–2005) and future (2074–2099, Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5)) periods. We find that observed extreme heat stress drops off nearly linearly with elevation above a coastal zone, at a rate that is larger in more humid regions. Future projections indicate dramatic relative …

Mapping Narrations, Narrating Maps: Concepts Of The World In The Middle Ages And The Early Modern Period, Ingrid Baumgartner, Daniel Gneckow, Anna Hollenbach, Phillip Landgrebe

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume offers the author's central articles on the medieval and early modern history of cartography for the first time in English translation. A first group of essays gives an overview of medieval cartography and illustrates the methods of cartographers. Another analyzes world maps and travel accounts in relation to mapped spaces. A third examines land surveying, cartographical practices of exploration and the production of Portolan atlases.

Prisoners Of Scale: Downscaling Community Resilience Measurements For Enhanced Use, Sahar Derakshan, Leah Blackwood, Margot Habets, Julia F. Effgen, Susan L. Cutter

Faculty Publications

As improved data availability and disaster resilience knowledge help progress community resilience quantification schemes, spatial refinements of the associated empirical methods become increasingly crucial. Most existing empirically based indicators in the U.S. use county-level data, while qualitatively based schemes are more locally focused. The process of replicating resilience indices at a sub-county level includes a comprehensive study of existing databases, an evaluation of their conceptual relevance in the framework of resilience capitals, and finally, an analysis of the statistical significance and internal consistency of the developed metrics. Using the U.S. Gulf Coast region as a test case, this paper demonstrates …

"We've Created Cheap Energy Off The Backs Of Salmon": Dam Removal Politics And Alliances In The Lower Snake River Basin, Krista Harrington

Dissertations and Theses

Dams, once considered by many to be good for water development in the Western U.S., might not be a part of a climate resilient future. Dams have come under increasing scrutiny due to undesirable ecological implications. Although dam removal proposals are growingly popular in recent decades, they are controversial since they impact different stakeholders in different ways. In the Pacific Northwest, the Lower four Snake River dams have long been criticized for their negative impacts on salmon. In February 2021, US Congressman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) proposed a comprehensive framework to deconstruct the Lower four Snake River dams as an attempt …

A Raft To Coastal Resilience: Odu Researchers Collaborate To Help Rural Communities Combat Flooding Impacts, News @ Odu

News Items

No abstract provided.

Examining Elementary School Children’S Knowledge About Food And Nutrition In Southwestern Ontario, Canada, Paige Colley, Jamie A. Seabrook, Sarah J. Woodruff, Jason Gilliland

Geography & Environment Publications

Purpose: Knowledge is fundamental to helping children make nutritional choices that support lifelong healthy behaviours. This study (i) investigates elementary school children’s knowledge about food and nutrition and (ii) identifies sociodemographic factors influencing children’s reported knowledge. Methods: In 2017–2019, a survey was administered to 2443 students (grades 5–8) at 60 schools across southwestern Ontario, Canada, and a parent survey was used to validate self-reported sociodemographics. Multiple regression was used to analyse children’s knowledge scores and related sociodemographic factors. A total knowledge score was calculated by summing correct responses derived from 46 individual questions in the student …

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, May & June 2022, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Volume 3, Issue 4

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2 Awards and Recognition
Page 3-4 The path to a Doctorate Degree
Page 4 American Indian Student Center Native Graduate Honoring Ceremony
Page 5 Celebrating the lives of those who touched the College
Page 6 Media coverage of CNS
Page 7 Open PRAIRIE
Page 8-10 CNS Graduation Festivities
Page 11-14 Spring 2022 Dean's List
Page 16 Richard and Janice Vetter Endowed Professorship in Biotechnology.position

An Assessment Of The Extremes And Impacts Of The February 2021 South-Central U.S. Arctic Outbreak, And How Climate Services Can Help, Rebecca A. Bolinger, Vincent M. Brown, Christopher M. Fuhrmann, Karin L. Gleason, T. Andrew Joyner, Barry D. Keim, Amanda Lewis, John W. Nielsen-Gammon, Crystal J. Stiles, William Tollefson, Hannah E. Attard, Alicia M. Bentley

Faculty Publications

In February 2021, a widespread cold-air outbreak, with two associated winter storm systems, impacted the South-Central United States. After a comprehensive summary of the synoptic setup and a day-by-day analysis of the event, we assess the significance of the storm from a climatological perspective. Concerning winter precipitation, there were isolated instances of record snowfall accumulations. While freezing rain and freezing drizzle both occurred, total freezing precipitation accumulations did not exceed a one-in-50 year event. The duration of the cold was notable — many stations across the region broke records for the highest number of consecutive days below freezing. When analyzing …

Cityengine As A Tool For Visualizing Neighborhood Change: An Initial Study, Zach Noyes

City and Regional Planning

Urban planning is reliant upon genuine public engagement to ensure that planning and policy decisions reflect the ideas shared by the public. Because planning is a profession largely focused on the physical and built implications of more abstract planning concepts, effective graphic communication is critical to securing public support and understanding of policy decisions. ESRI's CityEngine uses procedural modeling technology to render personally-tailored scenes to non-planner members of the public, and shows potential to positively change the way that planners generate graphic representations of physical impacts of policy changes. This initial study establishes a methodology for determining the efficacy of …

Building The Revolution: Ideology, Affect And Gender In Bolivarian Caracas, Andreina I. Torres A.

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Building the Revolution: Ideology, Affect and Gender in Bolivarian Caracas,” examines the Bolivarian Revolution (1998-present) as a heterogenous shifting political process, and terrain of struggle in which a multiplicity of actors disputed the meanings and direction of socialism in Venezuela. During three years of ethnographic and archival research in Caracas (between 2014 and 2017) I researched one of the many Campamentos de Pioneros (Pioneer Camps) that was part of the Movimiento de Pobladores y Pobladoras de Venezuela (Venezuela’s Settlers’ Movement). The pioneers sought to “rescue” and occupy centrally located land in the national capital in order to build housing for …

Why, New York City? Gauging The Quality Of Life Through The Thoughts Of Tweeters, Sheryl Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As a resource for social data, Twitter’s platform has been used to measure the quality of life through sentiment analysis. This capstone project explores another methodological technique—querying Twitter data around specific keyword terms to determine dominant topics, word patterns, and sentiment leanings in a geographical area. Focusing on New York City and Los Angeles for comparative analysis, the keyword term “why” will be used to build a Python analysis around topic modeling and sentiment analysis. Using this approach, the analysis reveals social and cultural differences, the overall sentiment of tweets, and subjects of interest to tweeters.

GitHub Repository for all …

Information Sources, Perceived Personal Experience, And Climate Change Beliefs, Sonny Rosenthal

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study proposes and tests a model of serial mediation based on the norm activation model and value-belief-norm theory. It argues that beliefs about climate change are related to perceived personal experience, which is related to the use of different information sources. Structural equation modeling of survey data from 1084 adult residents of Singapore found mixed support for three hypotheses. Results showed that perceived personal experience of climate change was related to the use of traditional media (β = 0.20), social media (β = 0.16), and interpersonal sources (β = 0.13), but not institutional sources. Perceived personal experience of climate …