Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute
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Motivations matter: understanding the driving factors behind cultural repatriation in the United States since 1970
No full textThe United States alone holds one quarter of the world’s museums. If the mission of the American Museum is one of public service and preservation of world heritage, they must engage with the ongoing debate about, and increasing pressures of, global cultural repatriation of objects by source nations. Changes to museum collection and ethics policies to reflect this debate have not occurred in unison in the United States. Studying specific instances of returns from American museums to source nations in an attempt to better understand the institutional decision-making behind voluntary returns can help aid source nations in crafting their repatriation requests. This thesis seeks to analyze the motivations behind voluntary cultural repatriations that have occurred in the United States since 1970 and utilizes three case studies, examining the negotiations between the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and Mexico, Yale University’s Peabody Museum and Peru, and the Smithsonian Institution and Nigeria to do so.M.A.Includes bibliographical reference
Racism, sexism, identity and health for Black women: the inclusion of gendered racism and gendered racial identity
No full textPrevious research establishes a relationship between racism and sexism, and mental health outcomes for Black Americans and women. Research additionally establishes racial identity as an inconsistent moderator in the relationship between racism and mental health. Within this dissertation, I highlight research examining racism and Black women’s mental health outcomes, research examining sexism and mental health, and research examining the moderating capacity of racial identity in the relationship between racism and mental health. I then argue that definitions of racism, sexism and racial identity are not specific to, and may not adequately reflect Black women’s experiences, and thus do not completely elucidate the link between racism and mental health for Black women.
In two studies, I used a newly developed quantitative measure to examine the relationship between cultural gendered racism and mental health as moderated by gendered racial identity. Study 1 examined the psychometric properties of the cultural gendered racism measure, finding a significant, four factor model for the measure. Additionally, experiences with cultural gendered racism were positively, moderately correlated with interpersonal gendered racism, cultural racism, and sexism as predicted. Further, Study 1 established a significant, positive relationship between experiences with cultural gendered racism and mental health, such that as experiences with cultural gendered racism increased, so did anxious and depressive symptomatology. In a comparison between the predictive capabilities of cultural gendered racism, interpersonal gendered racism, sexism, and racism, Study 1 found that cultural gendered racism was not better at predicting mental health outcomes than cultural racism, or sexism. However, findings from Study 1 suggest that interpersonal gendered racism predicts anxious and depressive symptomatology better than cultural racism or sexism alone. Study 2 established a significant, positive relationship between cultural gendered racism and mental health, and found that aspects of gendered racial identity (gendered racial centrality and gendered racial private regard) were significant moderators in this relationship. Study 2 also found that some aspects of gendered racial identity were stronger versus weaker moderators in this relationship, when compared to gender identity and racial identity. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Bird’s eye view: using a data fusion of drone and satellite imagery to classify and assess high marsh habitat in Delaware Bay, New Jersey
No full textTidal salt marshes are among the most productive ecosystems in the world and provide vital habitat for both aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Climate change-induced sea level rise poses an existential threat to salt marsh habitats, with many areas facing potential submersion within the next century. In Delaware Bay, impoundment for the farming of salt hay (Spartina patens) and ditching for mosquito control have altered the hydrology and structure of the salt marsh environment. Over time these alterations have reduced marsh resiliency and increased vulnerability to the destructive effects of sea level rise. Furthermore, areas of high marsh characterized by significant coverage of Spartina patens and Distichlis spicata are being converted into Spartina alterniflora low marsh as tidal ranges increase in elevation. This phenomenon requires the ability to map changes in high marsh coverage using a method that is both temporally and spatially flexible. This study leverages data fusions of drone- and satellite-based remotely sensed imagery to classify high marsh vegetation communities at fine and broad spatial scales. Fine-scale classification is conducted primarily using 2.5 cm/pixel drone imagery and an object-based image analysis approach to identify high marsh areas at a site-specific scale. Broad-scale classification is conducted using 3 m/pixel satellite imagery and a pixel-based image analysis approach to classify high marsh habitat at a regional scale. Results showed that drone imagery-based fine-scale classification of Spartina patens-Distichlis spicata high marsh was best performed using a data fusion of RGB drone imagery, a pansharpened satellite imagery-based near-infrared band, and vertical information derived from drone photogrammetry, with a classification F-score of 74%. Results also showed that satellite imagery-based broad-scale classification of Spartina patens-Distichlis spicata high marsh is best performed using a support vector machine (SVM) approach, with a classification F-score of 68%. Habitat classification maps are compared with saltmarsh sparrow (Ammodrammus caudacutus) call activity using data collected as part of a passive acoustic monitoring study. Results showed that saltmarsh sparrow call activity at the site was highest in areas of unditched marsh, followed by a recently active salt hay farm, and lastly ditched marsh. Additionally, saltmarsh sparrow call activity was shown to be significantly correlated with percent coverage of Spartina patens-Distichlis spicata high marsh.M.S.Includes bibliographical reference
A case study of a mechanics of solids course in civil engineering education
No full textUpon graduation, students should possess the ability to make informed decisions, exercise sound judgment, engage in critical thinking, and continue developing their engineering intuition. The foundational concepts taught in Engineering Mechanics, particularly in Mechanics of Solids (MOS), serve as the cornerstone of technical knowledge in engineering. Consequently, engineering educators bear a significant responsibility to effectively impart these concepts, ensuring that graduates excel in their professional careers. However, students often struggle to retain and comprehend these fundamental concepts, hindering their application in the broader context of engineering design.
Current research predominantly focuses on implementing various pedagogical interventions to gauge their impact on student learning. While valuable, the plethora of interventions and their inconsistent outcomes indicate a need for a fresh perspective on teaching mechanics courses, specifically MOS.
This study adopts a comprehensive case study approach, examining a single MOS course at a large research university from the perspective of faculty, students, and industry stakeholders. Through qualitative methods, the aim is to delve deeper into the root causes of students' challenges in MOS courses. The research methodology includes classroom observations, problem-solving session analyses, interviews, and document analysis to identify recurring patterns and areas for pedagogical improvement. The research explores the integration of active learning strategies and optimization of Learning Management Systems to foster better student engagement.
Emphasis is placed on well-defined learning outcomes, effective utilization of engineering diagrams, and understanding the dynamics between expert and novice problem-solving strategies. The findings offer nuanced insights into student study habits and suggest adaptations to assessment methodologies. This underscores a commitment to aligning engineering education with the evolving needs of students and the profession.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Preparing the forest: designing intersections between Montessori and nature-based education
No full textThis Master’s thesis explores the reconciliation of pedagogical differences between the structure of Montessori education and the freedom of Nature-Based education through the design of a new school campus for Mountain Village Charter School (MVCS) in Plymouth, New Hampshire. As a community design project, this thesis prioritizes the needs and desires of stakeholders of the school including the teachers and staff, the Board of Trustees, the parents and the students. Research was conducted through a review of experiential education literature, case studies, site visits, unobtrusive school observations, community surveys, focus groups and continual community engagement through design presentations. This process revealed that the two differing pedagogies can complement each other if a landscape moves from natural areas encouraging free exploration of the landscape to intentionally programmed areas promoting a range of observational and practical skills, creating a gradient of preparation. This gradient can be achieved by placing small interventions throughout the landscape, enhancing the natural moments of learning already present onsite. These interventions become more compact and prominent as the spaces shift to be more intentionally programmed. The proposed site work is composed of five scales of planning: a master trail plan, an evolution of site programming over the next 10+ years, a front property design, an entrance plan and detailed planting proposals. These levels combine to present a cohesive guiding vision for the stakeholders of MVCS, embedding the flexibility that a nature-based academic curriculum must have into the much more structured Montessori educational concept.M.L.A.Includes bibliographical reference
Shaped like itself: the rhetoric of reality in Renaissance England
No full textThis dissertation attempts a historical interpretation of rhetorical figures in Renaissance England. Reality brings together all the facts of life into a single process; in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, reality changed. The transition to capitalism in England produced reality anew and reordered all social relations. The poets and rhetors did not have a clear view of this process, but certainly felt alterations in the structure of reality. Rhetorical figures emerged from and authorized themselves in terms of that new reality. Rather than treat figures as ahistorical containers of meaning transmitted from classical rhetoric, I show that every figure bears history within itself. By arguing for the historicity of individual figures, we can see the peculiar form—the peculiar structure of reference—that certain figures take on in Renaissance England that they could not have taken on before and could not take on again. Using the examples of prosopopoeia, hyperbole, and metalepsis in Shakespeare, Jonson, Spenser, and Milton, each figure reconstitutes its essence for a new ideological relationship between the writer and reader grounded in transformations in economic relations that were often invisible to both. I trace each figure from its classical theorizations to its Renaissance retheorizations to show the formative power of reality on the structure of each figure. Finally, I explore the concept of rhetorical ornament and the eloquent ideal in two Restoration texts as the period of economic transition and the period of eloquence’s hegemony came to a close together.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
The impact of entrainment on the likelihood of convective initiation: dilute CAPE as a forecasting tool
No full textConvective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) is a parameter used by forecasters in their analysis of the convective environment. The convectional calculation of CAPE excludes entrainment of environmental air into the convective parcel above the mixed layer. This study utilizes an entrainment parameterization called dilute CAPE and examines its potential forecast benefits in an operational setting. Convective outlooks from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) are used to determine 20 bust cases and 20 hit cases to calculate an entrained CAPE on. Cases were chosen during the months of May, June, and July in 2018, 2019, and 2020. It is shown that the reduction in CAPE due to entrainment for bust cases averaged 11 percentage points higher than hit cases. Parametric statistical tests show that the differences in reductions between busts and hits are statistically significant. A dry air importance diagnostic is used to measure whether dry or cold air were the main contributors in diluting the convective parcel. The diagnostic shows that on average, dry air is the main contributor to CAPE reductions for busts and cold air is the main contributor for hits. Differences were particularly notable for hail and tornado threats. Therefore, metrics that include dilute CAPE appear to be promising tools for severe weather forecasting.M.S.Includes bibliographical reference
Essays in environmental economics
No full textThis dissertation is composed of three chapters examining different topics in the field of Environmental Economics. Chapter 1 examines the effect of post-construction stormwater infrastructure, or best management practices (BMPs), on housing prices. Using a repeat-sales model, I analyze the effects of structural BMPs on housing prices in nine Maryland counties. I separate the functional benefits provided by stormwater infrastructure, particularly benefits from localized flood reduction, from the potential amenity or disamenity these BMPs offer nearby homes. To capture the amenity (disamenity) effect, I estimate the effect of proximity to different types of BMPs and examine the extensive and intensive effects of BMP installation. I estimate that houses that have at least one BMP built between sales sell for 1.2 percent more than houses that do not, and that each additional BMP yields an increase of 0.07 percent. Properties that are closer to BMPs benefit more than houses with BMPs farther away. The effects vary by the type of BMP, with most types contributing positively to housing values. To determine the value of localized flood protection from these structures, I control for whether the property is located inside a BMP’s drainage area. After separating BMPs by type, I find that houses inside a BMP’s drainage area sell for about 0.5 percent more than houses that are not. Though less robust, these results suggest that stormwater BMPs not only have amenity value but may also have value from their functional ability to provide protection from localized flooding.
Chapter 2 examines the effects of individual and community flood risk on housing prices in coastal New Jersey counties following Hurricane Sandy. The results show a significant price premium on properties in the flood zone prior to the storm, with a larger effect for houses subject to additional hazards from coastal waves. After Hurricane Sandy, there is a significant price discount on flood zone properties, but still a net positive effect. The negative price effects from individual risk do not appear to be short-lived, persisting through at least the five years following the storm. In addition to a house’s individual risk, I define two continuous measures of community level flood risk: municipal risk, or the share of the municipality in the flood zone and urban risk, or the share of the municipality’s urban land in the flood zone. After removing parcels that were damaged in the storm, I find that houses in municipalities with ten percentage points more land in the flood zone sell for between 1 and 2 percent less. Properties in municipalities with larger shares of urban land in the flood zone do not have a statistically significant effect on prices. The apparent positive coefficients on location in the flood zone and on urban risk highlight the difficulty in controlling for coastal amenities.
In Chapter 3, coauthored with Hilary Sigman, we examine the effects of China’s 2018 ban of post-consumer recoverable waste imports on municipal solid waste management in the US. Using affected exports before the ban to measure differential exposure, we find that the ban increased the amount of waste disposed in landfills but had at most a small effect on solid waste combustion. Exposure to the ban is associated with declines in post-consumer recycling activity. Over twenty percent of the displaced scrap paper was diverted to other importing countries, whereas plastic exports to other countries fell, perhaps because of the ban’s broader impact on recycling. The results are consistent with the waste havens hypothesis: restricting trade in post-consumer waste shifted environmental damage to the exporting country.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Fixing the seams: tourism and territory in the Kentucky coalfields
No full textThis project considers the growth in "sustainable tourisms" emerging throughout eastern Kentucky in recent decades as an attempted response to the multiple crises of the coal industry – including contamination of abandoned mines and underutilized infrastructural, state, and labor capacity. I look at the infrastructures, narratives, and practices of environmental and heritage tourisms, questioning what role they play in attempting to rehabilitate central Appalachian socio-natures. I assert that such tourisms are part of a broader territorial fix of sustainability: development incentives invested in the attraction of diversified capitals and labors attempt to activate regional surpluses while producing novel enclosures of existing or future non-capitalist relations to nature. I consider the specific representations and natures at play in late-extractive, sustainable tourism in Appalachia, taking two forms - “coal heritage” tourism in Harlan County, KY, and rock climbing in the Red River Gorge – as primary case studies. Situating my fieldwork in these sites within broader literature on regional, structural transformation alongside document analysis and interviews with tourism officials, I assert a relationship between contemporary logics of development/representations of nature with regional territorial configurations produced through historic timber and coal extraction. Ultimately, I argue that sustainability in late-extractive eastern Kentucky presents absent natures and settled histories available for the taking by new labor and capital, all while contemporary physical resource extraction persists just out of sight, wasted ecologies and surplus labors of coal extraction are pressured to modernize or left to die, and historic dispossessions are normalized.M.A.Includes bibliographical reference
Molecular evolution of eukaryotic single-stranded DNA viruses at different taxonomic scales
No full textThe advent of high-throughput sequencing methods has shed light on the immense diversity of viruses and revolutionized our understanding of their roles not only in disease but in ecosystem function. Perhaps no taxonomic group has expanded more in the last decade than phylum Cressdnaviricota, a group of eukaryotic-infecting circular, Rep-encoding single-stranded (CRESS) DNA viruses with broad host range. Despite the pervasiveness of CRESS DNA viruses across ecosystems, there are still many gaps in our understanding of their ecology and evolution. For this dissertation, I applied a variety of comparative computational methods to gain insights into the molecular evolution of CRESS DNA viruses at various taxonomic levels. I developed a statistical test that allowed me to assess codon usage bias patterns for CRESS DNA viruses with ambisense genomes across phylum Cressdnaviricota. While there is an overwhelming pattern of overrepresentation of thymine-ending codons for sequences in the virion-sense and of adenine-ending codons in the anti-sense across the phylum, I observe idiosyncratic genus- and strand-specific codon preferences as well. The statistical test developed here can serve as an alignment-free tool to help corroborate the genome organization of unclassified CRESS DNA viruses. Viruses in the CRESS DNA plant virus genus Begomovirus are important threats to global crop production, yet it has been over a decade since the last rigorous phylogenetic analysis of the genus and more than 200 novel species have been discovered. Phylogenetic analysis of the coat and replication-associated proteins for all begomovirus species reveals that two coarse geographic groupings are maintained- begomoviruses from the Americas and begomoviruses from the “Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania” region. Frequent genetic exchange through recombination is observed within the regions, but rarely across them. Interspecies recombination is an important evolutionary mechanism for begomoviruses, including those from the cassava mosaic disease (CMD) complex. We observe that six of eleven cassava mosaic begomovirus species evolved through interspecies recombination events. Although mutation is more frequent within populations, recombination is the main mechanism of speciation for this group. Recombination also contributed to a devastating CMD pandemic that began in Uganda in the late 1980s. Time-calibrated analyses showed that the East African cassava mosaic virus-Uganda recombinant lineage associated with the outbreak was likely circulating for years or even over a decade before its severe disease phenotype was first reported. Although phylogeographic analyses are uncertain about whether Uganda or Kenya is the most likely geographic origin, I propose that, based on diversity of sampled sequences, the recombination event occurred in Kenya. Altogether, these computational studies enhance our understanding of the evolution of members of Cressdnaviricota.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference