University of Wyoming Open Journals
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Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent: a story of mystery and tragedy and the closing of the American frontier
No full textFeatured photo from figure 4 in report. 
Factors influencing perceived appropriateness of concessioner activity in Grand Teton
No full textConcessioner provided services are integral to the national park visitor experience, and with visitation across NPS units growing steadily, services provided by these public-private-partnerships will likely only increase in importance. Despite this, concerns exist regarding the presence of for-profit entities within national parks. While private businesses may be more responsive to consumers, their presence raises questions regarding equity, access, and perceptions of ownership. The purpose of this study was to assess factors that may influence visitor’s perceptions of appropriateness regarding (a) current and (b) future concessioner activities within Grand Teton National park (GTNP). Regression analyses indicate the importance of personal values, rather than actual experiences (positive or negative) with concessions in shaping perceived appropriateness of future concessions activity. Satisfaction with concessions services, amount of concessions activity that respondents perceived in the park in the present, and trust in GTNP were all non-factors in determining anticipated future appropriateness. Instead, a belief that concessions activity would increase, social liberalism, economic conservatism, and place identity with GTNP were related to perceptions that concessioner activity at GTNP would be inappropriately high in the future. Although the regression predicting future beliefs was robust (R2 = 0.43), no variables significantly predicted current beliefs (R2 = 0.05).
Featured photo by Grand Teton on Flickr. https://flic.kr/p/2jf3fa
Class, Taste, and Literature: The Case of Ivar Lo-Johansson and Swedish Working-Class Literature
No full textThis article discusses the tradition of Swedish working-class literature and the relationship between taste and class. First, I analyze the representation of this relationship in Swedish working-class writer Ivar Lo-Johansson’s novel Kungsgatan [King Street] from 1935. Thereafter, I discuss the whole tradition of Swedish working-class literature—in which LoJohansson’s novel occupies a central position. This tradition constitutes a challenge to received ideas about class and taste, mainly because its consecration as a central strand in Swedish literature and its dissemination to a mass audience in the working class make it problematic to uphold conventional distinctions between popular/working-class and high/bourgeois culture. Finally, I argue that the challenging of these distinctions is not only a key to a better understanding of Lo-Johansson’s novel, but it also shows that Swedish working-class literature can serve as a catalyst for re-theorizations within working-class studies of the relationship between class and taste as something that is historically specific, rather than universal
College Rankings: Creating an Equitable Model of Transformation and Institutional Effectiveness
No full textColleges that serve working-class students show up poorly in traditional rankings of US colleges. Without appropriate outcome measures, measures of ‘quality’ of inputs drive most current ranking systems. The trouble is that quality is often just a measure of pre-existing privilege (e.g., selectivity, average SAT scores). In this article, I demonstrate the viability of a model that uses economic returns data while factoring in the relative lack of privilege of students attending any particular institution as a way of ranking that institution’s transformative efficacy and institutional effectiveness. The model was then tested on a diverse sample of 655 US colleges and universities for whom reliable economic returns and institutional effectiveness data are available. Unlike widely used rankings models, this proposed alternative model can distinguish between reproducing privilege (high economic returns as expected, low defaults, timely year to degree and fewer incompleters) and facilitating social mobility (higher returns and persistence than would be expected given the incoming characteristics of students). The article concludes with a discussion of the uses to which such a model could be best put
The tangled web we weave: how humans influence predator-prey dynamics
No full textLarge carnivores like gray wolves (Canis lupus) play key roles in regulating ecosystem structure and function. After being functionally extirpated from the United States by the early 1900s, wolves have recently recolonized portions of their historic ranges and are increasingly coming into contact with a rapidly-growing human population. When carnivores encounter humans, the way they behave, and therefore the way they shape ecosystems, is likely to change. Unfortunately, our ability to predict how wolves will affect ecosystems in human-dominated areas is limited by an incomplete understanding of how and why carnivores respond to human influence. We are therefore investigating wolf kill sites across Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where we can disentangle the effects of multiple simultaneous human influences. Specifically, we are evaluating whether and how spatiotemporal patterns of wolf predation may change in response to unnatural physical infrastructure, disturbance from general human activity, potential threat of mortality, and human-altered prey distributions. Our ongoing field study will help managers anticipate effects of wolf predation in and around human-influenced areas while contributing novel information to theories of predation risk and predator-prey interactions.
Featured photo by YNP on Flickr. https://flic.kr/p/HGfKq
Puns, Politics, and Pork Chops: The ‘insignificant magnitude’ of T-Bone Slim
No full textHobos have been idealised for their supposed freedom from social restraints. A notable exception to this romantic tendency was the work of the Finnish-American anarchist newspaper columnist, songwriter and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), T-Bone Slim (Matt Valentine Huhta). T Bone Slim’s writings were radical interventions in debates around class, labour and exploitation in 1920s and 1930s America. His work was deeply satirical, with a scathing wit reminiscent of Mark Twain. Focussing on his representation of food, fame, and the body, this article argues that Slim’s work represents a challenge to the idealistic portrayal of the hobo that appears in many contemporary autobiographies and in later academic scholarship
Trotter, Jr. Joe William (2019) Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America, University of California Press, Oakland, CA.
No full textDiagonal Sums of Doubly Substochastic Matrices
No full textLet denote the convex polytope of all doubly stochastic matrices, and denote the convex polytope of all doubly substochastic matrices. For a matrix , define the sub-defect of to be the smallest integer such that there exists an doubly stochastic matrix containing as a submatrix. Let denote the subset of which contains all doubly substochastic matrices with sub-defect . For a permutation of symmetric group of degree , the sequence of elements is called the diagonal of corresponding to . Let and denote the maximum and minimum diagonal sums of , respectively. In this paper, existing results of and functions are extended from to In addition, an analogue of Sylvesters law of the function on is proved