Geography Commons^™

Narrative And Material Tools Of Resistance: Mobilizing Textile Crafts, Heritage, And Fashion In The Context Of The Invasion Of Ukraine (2022–2023), Magali-An Berthon, Sophia Hayda, Tetiana Krupa, Yuliia Lazorenko, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

In 2022–2024, textile and fashion scholars came together to write an anthology sharing a new vision of European history as seen through textiles, in the COST Action EuroWeb. During this period, the continent was still dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and was then faced with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Contemporary European history will be markedly defined by the ongoing war in Ukraine. One remarkable aspect of this conflict is the way textiles and dress appear daily in a variety of media outlets, mobilized as visual and semiotic means to communicate issues of war …

A Sensory Perspective On High-Ranked Women’S Dress In The 8th To 4th Century Bc In The Mediterranean And Central Europe, Karina Grömer, Susanna Harris, Audrey Gouy, Cecilie Brøns

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

In the late 20th century, the study of western science was dominated by a philosophical approach to evidence as text and meaning. In archaeology, material culture was treated like text, to be read through systems of signs, symbols, and indices put together in syntax. For studies of dress, this was influential in understanding dress as a cognitive system compiled to create identities and meaning. In this approach, textiles, fastenings, hairstyles, and gestures are presented as signs and symbols used to form a statement about identity, to be read by others. There was a focus on the visuality of dress and …

An Examination Of Homo Naledi Early Juveniles Recovered From The Rising Star Cave System, South Africa, Juliet K. Brophy, Debra R. Bolter, Marina Elliott, John Hawks, Lee R. Berger

Faculty Publications

Background: Six Homo naledi early juveniles were recovered from U.W. 101 (Dinaledi Chamber), U.W. 102 (Lesedi Chamber), and U.W. 110 in the Rising Star cave system. Aim: This paper develops the information for the H. naledi early juvenile life stage, as defined by a combination of deciduous and permanent dentition, and the eruption of the first permanent molar. Subjects and methods: The growing number of young individuals recovered from the Rising Star cave system allows us to gain a better understanding of their variation, or lack thereof, and provides a basis to estimate broad ranges for age at death of …

Human–Environment Interactions At Ta’Ab Nuk Na, A Submerged Maya Salt Works Site In Belize, Cheryl M. Foster, Heather Mckillop, E. Cory Sills

Faculty Publications

Sea-level rise and settlement are investigated at Ta’ab Nuk Na, an ancient Maya salt works in Belize, by examining samples from wooden posts and marine sediment. The samples included Post 145 of Building B and the Nunavut beam, along with marine sediment columns cut from beside both wooden posts. The sediment columns were sampled at 2 cm intervals. Loss-on ignition confirmed the presence of organic material. Identifying the organic content involved removing nonorganic material from the sediment and sorting the organic material under magnification. This procedure established that most of the organic material was red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle). Red mangroves …

Flooded Mangrove Landscapes Hide Ancient Maya Coastal Sites In Belize, Heather I. Mckillop

Faculty Publications

Evidence of ancient Maya exploitation of salt, other marine resources, settlement, and sea trade is hidden in flooded mangrove landscapes on the cays, mainland, and in shallow offshore locations on the south coast of Belize. This article includes a discussion of the coastal economy from the Middle Preclassic through the Postclassic periods (600 B.C.–A.D. 1500). Data from sites discovered and excavated since 1982 in the coastal area of the Port Honduras and Paynes Creek National Park support a model of coastal reliance on marine resources and tree crops. The need for a regular supply of coastal salt to inland cities …

Dpal-Bert: A Faster And Lighter Question Answering Model, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Zhuohang Cai, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Xiaobing Chen, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

Recent advancements in natural language processing have given rise to numerous pre-training language models in question-answering systems. However, with the constant evolution of algorithms, data, and computing power, the increasing size and complexity of these models have led to increased training costs and reduced efficiency. This study aims to minimize the inference time of such models while maintaining computational performance. It also proposes a novel Distillation model for PAL-BERT (DPAL-BERT), specifically, employs knowledge distillation, using the PAL-BERT model as the teacher model to train two student models: DPAL-BERT-Bi and DPAL-BERT-C. This research enhances the dataset through techniques such as masking, …

Convolution-Transformer For Image Feature Extraction, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Youshuai Yang, Bo Yang, Shan Liu, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Xiaobing Chen, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

This study addresses the limitations of Transformer models in image feature extraction, particularly their lack of inductive bias for visual structures. Compared to Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), the Transformers are more sensitive to different hyperparameters of optimizers, which leads to a lack of stability and slow convergence. To tackle these challenges, we propose the Convolution-based Efficient Transformer Image Feature Extraction Network (CEFormer) as an enhancement of the Transformer architecture. Our model incorporates E-Attention, depthwise separable convolution, and dilated convolution to introduce crucial inductive biases, such as translation invariance, locality, and scale invariance, into the Transformer framework. Additionally, we implement a …

Afbnet: A Lightweight Adaptive Feature Fusion Module For Super-Resolution Algorithms, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Haitao Ren, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

At present, super-resolution algorithms are employed to tackle the challenge of low image resolution, but it is difficult to extract differentiated feature details based on various inputs, resulting in poor generalization ability. Given this situation, this study first analyzes the features of some feature extraction modules of the current super-resolution algorithm and then proposes an adaptive feature fusion block (AFB) for feature extraction. This module mainly comprises dynamic convolution, attention mechanism, and pixel-based gating mechanism. Combined with dynamic convolution with scale information, the network can extract more differentiated feature information. The introduction of a channel spatial attention mechanism combined with …

Terror And Time: Analyzing Homegrown Terrorism In The United States, Kyser Daniels-Baessler

Theses and Dissertations

The events of September 11th, 2001, prompted a global reckoning with the threat of international terrorism, leading to intensified awareness and policy responses worldwide. However, amidst this heightened global focus, the United States has faced a concerning rise in politically motivated violence on its soil. Against this backdrop, this thesis delves into the phenomenon of homegrown terrorism within the United States from 2000 to 2020. By employing advanced geospatial techniques, this study seeks to pinpoint areas nationwide with elevated rates of homegrown terrorist incidents. Moreover, it endeavors to uncover potential temporal correlations between these acts of violence and significant events, …

The Monadnock Volume 63, 2024, Clark University Geographical Society

The Monadnock (Clark Geographical Society)

Volume 63 of The Monadnock. The Monadnock was the alumni magazine of the Clark University Geographical Society (1927-1985) (2014-present).

Architects Of War: The Economic And Industrial Strategies Of The Third Reich And United States Under Albert Speer And William Knudsen, Spencer David Taylor

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis presents a chronological narrative that delves into the economic and industrial underpinnings of the Second World War, focusing on the contrasting war machines of Germany and the United States. By examining the strategic decisions and outcomes shaped by two central figures, Albert Speer of Germany and William S. Knudsen of the United States, this study highlights how their approaches to war production profoundly influenced the overall trajectory and outcome of the war. Knudsen’s embodiment of the American industrial spirit and Speer’s manipulation of Germany's constrained resources illustrate the crucial roles that economic strategies played alongside military operations. The …

The Resilient Rebound Of Tourism To Sustainable Levels, Melissa Weddell, Kara Grau

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Thematic Mapping Of Apidae Holdings Within The University Of Arkansas Arthropod Museum, Baylie L. Day, Ashley P.G. Dowling, Austin Jones

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Museum biological collections store species data that can be utilized in research on biodiversity, environmental change, invasive species, public health, and disease. The University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum, which began in 1905, houses over 750,000 specimens and has not yet been digitized. Making data publicly accessible via the internet makes the data available to the entire scientific community. The goal of this project was to create a digital resource to allow greater access to the University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum holdings. To do so, data from Bombus (bumble bee) and Xylocopa (carpenter bee) specimens were entered into a database in …

The Intersection Of Asset Management And Geographic Information Systems For University Facilities Maintenance, Andrew Westerlund Beland

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

This project describes a proof of concept for developing a digital asset management system dashboard for water backflow assemblies at Portland State University (PSU) using a modified ESRI ArcGIS Online backflow solution. Asset management is crucial for optimizing the lifecycle of tangible assets, which ensures cost-effective operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. PSU manages over 250 backflow assemblies spread across the 50-acre campus and has traditionally relied on manual processes, which can lead to inefficiencies and potential transcription errors.

The system links spatial data with asset attributes for backflow devices, enabling field staff to update inspection results directly from mobile devices. …

Beyond “The Forgotten War”: A Multidimensional Exploration Of The Korean War And Its Enduring Impact, Matthew Weishaupt

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay...................3

II. Primary Sources................20

III. Textbook Critique..............30

IV. New Textbook Entry..........34

V. Bibliography.......................40

Cartographies Of Black Diaspora And Foster Care Diaspora: Arguments Toward Abolition In The Aftermath Of Partus Sequitur Ventrem, Alicia Boyce

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that global foster care and adoption systems should be abolished because they are trauma inducing and grief producing state apparatuses that cyclically act to destabilize Black and “Other” subaltern populations from one generation to the next. Global foster care and adoption systems have become as common sensical as enslavement and chattel slavery all were as these systems are considered widely socially acceptable, common modes of domination and methods for controlling Black and “Other” populations. I coin a diaspora of community and cultural destabilization called the foster care diaspora (FCD), a theory and framing device that …

Earliest Ancient Maya Salt Production In Southern Belize: Excavations At Jay-Yi Nah, Heather Mckillop, Cory Sills

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Salt works along the Yucatan coasts of Mexico and Belize provide a record of salt production for inland trade during the height of Late Classic Maya civilisation (AD 550–800). At the Paynes Creek Salt Works in Belize, production focused on the creation of salt cakes by boiling brine in pots supported over fires in dedicated salt kitchens. Underwater excavations at the Early Classic (AD 250–550) site of Jay-yi Nah now indicate there was a longer and evolving tradition of salt making in the area, one that initially employed large, incurved bowls to meet local or down-the-line trade needs before inland …

Crisis, Genre, And The Informatic Infrastructure Of The Critical Path Aids Project In Philadelphia's Early Epidemic, Sid Feinberg

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

The Critical Path AIDS Project was a grassroots information network that distributed AIDS-related information related to biomedicine, social services, and politics. I explore the ways the project made sense of the shattering social service and care landscapes they emerged within and responded to. I situate Critical Path’s work within Philadelphia’s splintering care infrastructures and the experience of crisis Lauren Berlant argues structures perception of neoliberal life. I focus on the ways that Critical Path’s articulation of crisis and spatial re-orientation pull on the modernist design work of Buckminster Fuller. Fuller’s design work formed a framework through which the project constructed …

Beauty And The Anthropocene: On The Emancipatory Potential Of Experiences Of Beautiful Places In The Natural World, Matthew John

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation investigates the proposition that beauty—specifically, experiences of beautiful places in the natural world—can contribute to the emancipation of modern persons (and thereby developed societies) from instrumental rationality, which is theorized as a major driver of contemporary socioecological crises of the Anthropocene. Buber’s concept of the I–Thou relation provides a framework for conceptualizing ideal non-instrumental relations. The project’s methodology, rooted in post-phenomenology, consisted of semi-structured remote interviews and four follow-up focus groups with 35 then current and recently former residents of Juneau, Alaska. Taken together, data confirm that experiences of beautiful places in the natural world can and do …

A Geography Of Transgender Belonging In Louisville, Kentucky, Lj Mcallister

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Louisville, Kentucky is home to a surprisingly robust – and complex – transgender community. This study uses qualitative data from interviews, collaborative maps, and archival research to analyze a geography of belonging for transgender residents in the city. It discusses how the twelve participants negotiate their relationships with the conservative, “red” state of Kentucky, as well as the geographical decision-making they use to navigate Louisville’s many neighborhoods. Ultimately, this thesis draws attention to the ways in which prejudice shapes the landscape of belonging for transgender life in Derby City.