Using Self Organizing Maps To Analyze Demographics And Swing State Voting In The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election,
2012
Hope College
Using Self Organizing Maps To Analyze Demographics And Swing State Voting In The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Paul T. Pearson, Cameron I. Cooper
Faculty Publications
Emergent self-organizing maps (ESOMs) and k-means clustering are used to cluster counties in each of the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio by demographic data from the 2010 United States census. The counties in these clusters are then analyzed for how they voted in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, and political strategies are discussed that target demographically similar geographical regions based on ESOM results. The ESOM and k-means clusterings are compared and found to be dissimilar by the variation of information distance function.
Singapore’S Chinatown: Nation Building And Heritage Tourism In A Multiracial City,
2012
National University of Singapore
Singapore’S Chinatown: Nation Building And Heritage Tourism In A Multiracial City, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper focuses on the pivotal role played by the state in refashioning the Chinatown landscape as part of both nation-building and heritage tourism projects, and the ensuing cultural politics. After a brief history of the creation of Singapore’s Chinatown, the paper discusses, first, Chinatown’s place in Singapore’s post-independence nation-building project and, second, the reconfiguration of the Chinatown landscape as a tourism asset. The final section reflects on the changing politics of place as Chinatown gains legitimacy in state discourses on heritage, tourism and multiculturalism, as well as in the popular imagination as an ethnic precinct par excellence.
Review Of Griffith Taylor – Visionary Environmentalist Explorer By Carolyn Strange And Alison Bashford,
2012
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Review Of Griffith Taylor – Visionary Environmentalist Explorer By Carolyn Strange And Alison Bashford, Christina E. Dando
Geography and Geology Faculty Publications
Few would argue the inherently visual nature of geography, our use (and love of) maps, our emphasis on fieldwork and observation. Carolyn Strange and Alison Bashford’s biography Griffith Taylor: Visionary, Environmentalist, Explorer is as much a visual biography as a textual one, drawing on extensive visual materials as well as diaries and letters. Through images and texts, Strange and Bashford create a portrait of a complicated geographer, revealing a leading geographer of the twentieth century whose contributions cover the spectrum and the globe.
Social Interaction At The Maya Site Of Copan, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach To Configurational Analysis,
2012
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Social Interaction At The Maya Site Of Copan, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach To Configurational Analysis, Heather Richards-Rissetto
Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications
In this article, I employ least cost paths using GIS to measure the relationship between site configuration and social connectivity at the ancient Maya site of Copan, Honduras. I investigate two questions. First, did people of different social classes experience varying degrees of social connectivity? Second, did people living in different parts of the city experience difference degrees of social connectivity? Ultimately, the goal is modify traditional configurational analysis using least cost analysis (LCA) to identify how social hierarchy was embedded in landscapes and how ancient people may have strategically manipulated landscapes to structure social interaction and community organization.
Making Lives, Changing A Landscape: An Environmental History Of The Tualatin Valley, Washington County, Oregon,
2012
Portland State University
Making Lives, Changing A Landscape: An Environmental History Of The Tualatin Valley, Washington County, Oregon, Camille A. Cope
Geography Masters Research Papers
Sheltered by mountains on all sides, the 724-square mile Tualatin Valley has been home to successive groups of people who have shaped the landscape based on their needs, tools, and ideas about the human relationship to nature. Thousands of years of indigenous burning practices and cultivation of native plants, followed by two centuries of European-American fur trapping, agriculture, logging, and urbanization have created the Tualatin Valley landscape of today. Understanding how a history of changing land use has affected the region is integral to building an environmentally sustainable future.
Myths And Measures: The Cultural Performance Of Portland’S Strip Club Identity,
2012
Portland State University
Myths And Measures: The Cultural Performance Of Portland’S Strip Club Identity, Wayne Coffey
Geography Masters Research Papers
Identities of place develop through a multitude of perceptions. Place myths guide much of this perception. Portland, Oregon’s identity has evolved in particular around a much quoted but unchallenged statistic regarding the volume of nude dancing venues. This paper focuses on the literature specific to both nude dance venues and place identity; Portland’s legal history that contributed to this phenomenon; and some of the cultural and spatial variables pertinent to this issue. Two initiatives, aimed at restructuring the state constitution specifically to deal with nude dance venues and other adult entertainment, are analyzed.
Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration,
2012
University of Massachusetts Boston
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.
Public Policy And Sexual Geography In Portland, Oregon, 1970-2010,
2012
Portland State University
Public Policy And Sexual Geography In Portland, Oregon, 1970-2010, Elizabeth Morehead
Dissertations and Theses
Drawing on the concept of sexual geography, this study examines the social and political meanings of sexualized spaces in the urban geography of Portland, Oregon between 1970 and 2010. This includes an examination of the sexual geography of urban spaces as a deliberate construct resulting from official and unofficial public policy and urban planning decisions. Sexual geographies, the collective and individual constructions of sexuality, are not static. Nor are definitions of deviant sexual practices fixed in the collective consciousness. Both are continuously being reshaped and reconstructed in response to changing economic structures and beliefs about sex, race and class. Primary …
The Operation Was Successful But The Patient Died: The Politics Of Crisis And Homelessness In Post-Katrina New Orleans,
2011
LSU New Orleans
The Operation Was Successful But The Patient Died: The Politics Of Crisis And Homelessness In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Evan Casper-Futterman
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
On July 4th, 2007, a small group of housing activists set up a tent city encampment in a plaza adjacent to New Orleans City Hall. The action resulted in the creation of Homeless Pride, a small group of politicized Plaza residents. Six months later, hundreds of homeless people were moved from the park, and it was fenced off. Using archival videos, interviews, and news media, this thesis analyzes the opportunities and constraints that activists, service providers, and local officials faced in light of two intersecting and overlapping contexts. The first context is the immediate crisis of the levee …
Territoriality, Sovereignty And The Nation-State System In Israel-Palestine: The Creation Of The Palestinian Bantustan “State” And Shifting Palestinian Resistance Tactics,
2011
The University of San Francisco
Territoriality, Sovereignty And The Nation-State System In Israel-Palestine: The Creation Of The Palestinian Bantustan “State” And Shifting Palestinian Resistance Tactics, Sara Nichole Hughes
Master's Theses
The conflict in Israel-Palestine is over the sovereign control of territory and takes place within a global framework made up of clearly defined nation-states. It is within this framework that Israeli colonial expansion and construction of the separation barrier in the West Bank attempt to maximize Israeli annexation of the oPt while creating a Palestinian Bantustan “state” to contain and isolate the Palestinian people in non-sovereign territorial enclaves through the use of territoriality as a strategy for exercising sovereignty. In response to this obvious process of cantonization, Palestinians are resisting by supporting Israeli annexation – of the West Bank and …
Ecological Revival And Sustainable Living In The Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest Of Tamil Nadu: A Measurement Of Residential Perception In Sadhana Forest,
2011
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Ecological Revival And Sustainable Living In The Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest Of Tamil Nadu: A Measurement Of Residential Perception In Sadhana Forest, Elizabeth Collette Mcguire
Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses
Since 1970, the role and function of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been to promote environmental quality and to form strategies for carrying out environmental policy1. The EPA has committed to sustainability as the next level of environmental protection. The agency states that sustainability calls for policies and strategies that meet society’s present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs2. Presently, society’s requirements have resulted in natural resource exploitation and population distention- projected to reach 10 billion people within two human generations3. These paired occurrences are …
Mapping Injustice: The World Is Witness, Place-Framing, And The Politics Of Viewing On Google Earth,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Mapping Injustice: The World Is Witness, Place-Framing, And The Politics Of Viewing On Google Earth, Joshua P. Ewalt
Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications
Working from assumptions that inequality is often spatially informed, a set of interactive cartographies has recently proliferated on Google Earth. In this essay, I analyze one of those interactive cartographies: The World is Witness produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). I read the map as an organizational rhetoric that frames place as "embedded injustice." I also argue that thorough analysis of the framing of local place on Google Earth must inherently question whether the map can create a disruption in the viewing subject. While the map presents vital information on excruciatingly despicable acts of injustice, and the …
The Urban Fabric Of The Great Plains,
2011
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
The Urban Fabric Of The Great Plains, Andrew Becker
Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses
To most Americans the Great Plains region of North America is mysterious place. There are disagreements when defining its limits, and some people just refer to it as the Midwest. The Great Plains has been a place under an ocean, a place under glaciers, and a place on fire. It was once dubbed “the Great American Desert,” but is now known for its agricultural viability. The Great Plains sparks imagination because it is so massive and was one of the final frontiers for Euro-American settlement. The Great Plains is seen as a rural place but the majority of the region’s …
A Landscape Approach To Late Prehistoric Settlement And Subsistence Patterns In The Mojave Sink,
2011
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
A Landscape Approach To Late Prehistoric Settlement And Subsistence Patterns In The Mojave Sink, Tiffany Ann Thomas
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
The environment of the Late Prehistoric period (1200 A.D. to Historic Contact) Mojave Sink was wetter than modern conditions. The settlement and subsistence patterns of the occupants of the region during this period were driven by the availability of water, subsistence resources, raw material sources, and tradition. These people utilized the regional landscape based upon the seasonal availability of these resources. Supplemental agricultural production has been proposed for the Mojave River Delta due to the more favorable environmental conditions of this period. If agriculture was being practiced it would have affected the regional land-use patterns. For this thesis I propose …
The Temporal And Spatial Connectivity Of The Gambles Mill Corridor, Richmond, Va,
2011
University of Richmond
The Temporal And Spatial Connectivity Of The Gambles Mill Corridor, Richmond, Va, R.M. Price, K. Billups, S. Bodner, M. Burbank, L. Cohan, S. Elliott, C. Landesberg, G. Leonard, J. Marconi, M. Mcgovern, J. Petrosino, A. Phadke, C. Phelan, A. Purdy, David S. Salisbury
Geography and the Environment Poster Presentations
The City of Richmond and the Virginia Department of Transportation proposed to rehabilitate the Gambles Mill Trail connecting the University of Richmond (UR) to the intersection of Huguenot and River Road. Planners envision this trail as a sustainable model for the reduction of nutrient and sediment flow and as a vital path in a city-wide network of bike and pedestrian trails. Meanwhile, UR also proposes to rehabilitate the corridor in their new Master Plan. Nevertheless, until now, no substantive studies exist on the trail or the corridor linking the trail to the south side of the James River through the …
Sloterdijk’S Cynicism: Diogenes In The Marketplace,
2011
Fordham University
Sloterdijk’S Cynicism: Diogenes In The Marketplace, Babette Babich
Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections
No abstract provided.
Hyphenated Identities As A Challenge To Nation-State School Practice?,
2011
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Hyphenated Identities As A Challenge To Nation-State School Practice?, Edmund T. Hamann, William England
Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications
This chapter concludes the edited volume Hyphenated Identities and affords a chance to juxtapose how transnational students negotiate school and identity with how school systems in turn view such students, and then it allows the examination of two different strategies -- situational ethnicity versus the assertion of hyphenated identity -- as a glimpse into the cosmology of transnationally mobile students as they come into adulthood.
Review Of Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes
At Waconda Lake, Kansas. By Donald J. Blakeslee.,
2011
Kansas State University
Review Of Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes At Waconda Lake, Kansas. By Donald J. Blakeslee., Lauren W. Ritterbush
Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)
In Holy Ground, Healing Water readers are treated to a historical journey through the changing cultural landscapes of the Waconda Lake area, northcentral Kansas. This region provides the setting for discussion of unique and representative Native American and EuroAmerican cultural developments in the Great Plains. Don Blakeslee, anthropologist with Wichita State University, briefly reviews roughly 13,000 years ofNative traditions, based on archaeological investigations in the region, then discusses the Pawnee Trail, early European and Euro-American expeditions, complex Native-Native and Native-Euro-American interactions during the 19th century, sacred and secular perceptions and uses of Waconda Spring, and Lincoln Park, a local example …
Review Of Hard Grass: Life On The Crazy Woman Bison Ranch. By Mary Zeiss Stange,
2011
Hermosa, South Dakota http://www.windbreakhouse.com/
Review Of Hard Grass: Life On The Crazy Woman Bison Ranch. By Mary Zeiss Stange, Linda M. Hasselstrom
Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)
Twenty years ago, Stange and her husband traded a modest New Jersey house for seven square miles of overgrazed prairie and set out to right the wrongs done to a place that had been mismanaged ecologically as well as environmentally. The restoration begins disastrously with llamas before it proceeds to success with bison. Her narration includes her own experiences, but most of her essays are serious, in-depth studies of the broader topics that constitute life in the great grasslands spreading across the interior of the country. She begins with prehistory, analyzing the evolution of both plants and animals in the …
Review Of Gentle People: A Case Study Of Rockport Colony
Hutterites. By Joanita Kant.,
2011
Fresno Pacific University
Review Of Gentle People: A Case Study Of Rockport Colony Hutterites. By Joanita Kant., Rod Janzen
Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)
Joanita Kant's Gentle People is an excellent case study of South Dakota's Rockport Hutterite Colony. The book includes in-depth description and analysis of the lifestyle of Rockport Colony residents and covers people of all ages and interests. There are numerous helpful photographs, both contemporary and historical. Members of the Rockport Colony belong to a religious society that has practiced "community of goods" for nearly five centuries. The book not only introduces the reader to the deep-seated beliefs and practices of members, but also provides important sociological analysis supported by helpful figures and maps, including population pyramids, floor plans, and colony …
