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Automating LiDAR Dataset Retrieval and Geodesic Viewshed Generation with Python
No full textData collection is often the most time-consuming part of a GIS research project. For a viewshed analysis this involves identifying the coverage areas and selecting the exact grid squares required by the study area. The goal of this tool is to save the end-user time by automating the LiDAR download and viewshed calculation. This tool is run via the ArcGIS Pro geoprocessing GUI through a custom python tool in a custom toolbox. This tool is specifically designed to retrieve LiDAR data from Pennsylvania Lidar Navigator hosted by Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access, or PASDA. The tool generates a polygon around the target site which is used to select LAS grid squares that were imported via REST URL. These LAS grid squares are then used to download their linked LAS datasets, merged into one universal LAS dataset, and then used to run a geodesic viewshed. The completion of this script produces a viewshed layer with automatic symbolization of green: land visible up to eighty feet above ground level, blue: land visible from eighty feet to one hundred twenty feet above ground level, and no fill color for anything above one hundred twenty feet above ground level. Testing with this tool has resulted in successful viewshed calculations with distances between observer and target features ranging from three statute miles to twenty-six statute miles. With the tool successfully downloading and generating viewsheds this tool allows end-users to multitask while this tool runs in the background, effectively saving the end-user time.This item is part of the MS-GIST Master's Reports collection. For more information about items in this collection, please contact the UA Campus Repository at [email protected]
Developing an Interactive Tool for Identifying Flood-Prone Areas Based on the Topographic Wetness Index
No full textDetermining areas at risk of flooding is critical to minimizing the damage and losses that floods can cause. Geographic Information Systems can map regions of general flood vulnerability through more rapid methods than complex hydrological models. This project aimed to develop an easily operated tool to locate potentially flood-prone landscape areas by applying the Topographic Wetness Index to measure how terrain influences water runoff and accumulation. The result was an interactive Jupyter Notebook that provided detailed steps on using Python code blocks to perform index calculations. Functions of the tool included automating the downloading process for Digital Elevation Models based on user-provided coordinates and performing raster analysis to determine the input parameters of flow directions, accumulated flow, and slope gradients. A set of optional steps could process the index results according to the needs of the user through low-pass filtering, range scaling, and custom symbolization. The project provided an example of how the tool performs by comparing index values from Digital Elevation Models at differing resolutions to descriptions of localized flooding risks in Lake County, Oregon. The Topographic Wetness Index tool effectively demonstrated a practical approach for land use planning purposes that uses minimal inputs to identify areas susceptible to flooding.This item is part of the MS-GIST Master's Reports collection. For more information about items in this collection, please contact the UA Campus Repository at [email protected]
PLAN QUALITY EVALUATION FOR HEAT RESILIENCE GUIDEBOOK: A METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE FOR PRACTITIONERS AND RESEARCHERS
No full textIn the face of the record-breaking extreme heat that is threatening lives, economies, and habitats across the world, communities are starting to prepare new plans, develop roadmaps and refine strategies to address extreme heat. This guidebook outlines a systematic method to evaluate the content of plans to advance urban heat resilience. This method, called Plan Quality Evaluation, is an established and widely used content analysis process that is argued to improve knowledge of plans, further implementation of plans, and foster collaboration among plan-making bodies. Plan Quality Evaluation for Heat Resilience draws from a large literature on plan quality evaluation and adapts it specifically to address urban heat issues. The goal of this guidebook is to help practitioners and researchers refine different aspects of plans so that they can effectively foster heat resilience. The Plan Quality Evaluation for Heat Resilience method is comprised of a two-step process. The first step- Quality Principles Evaluation, involves comparing plan content against established criteria related to seven principles of high-quality plans: goals, fact base, strategies, implementation and monitoring, public participation, coordination, and uncertainty recognition. The second step- Heat Strategies Evaluation, involves analyzing the inclusion of strategies that can mitigate and manage heat risks. This guidebook helps planning practitioners and researchers conduct both steps of the Plan Quality Evaluation for Heat Resilience using their own community plans as they are prepared, refined, updated, or monitored during implementation. This guidebook is divided into three chapters. The first chapter introduces the concept of heat resilience planning and the rationale for using plan quality evaluation methodology. The second chapter outlines the two-step process. Finally, the third chapter discusses the interpretation of results. This document is a companion piece to the American Planning Associations’ PAS Report 600: Planning for Urban Heat Resilience and the Plan Integration for Resilience ScorecardTM for Heat guidebook.This material was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research's Urban Integrated Field Laboratories research activity, under Award Number DE-SC0023520. The material was also based on research supported by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Climate Adaptation Partnerships (CAP) program, through Grant NA17OAR4310288 with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest program at The University of Arizona, the U.S. NOAA's Climate Program Office's Extreme Heat Risk Initiative, Cooperative Agreement NA21OAR4310148.This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]
Campus Walkability and Safety Factors Influencing Pedestrian Use
No full textSustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone ProjectThis study examined how safety-related features of the built and natural environment affect pedestrian activity on the University of Arizona campus. Thirteen study areas were selected based on a preliminary survey of walking path preferences. Foot traffic was counted at each site, and safety attributes such as shade, tree count, sidewalk width, and proximity to cars or bus stops were recorded. These attributes were combined into a SafetyScore for each area. A regression analysis showed that none of the safety factors were strong predictors of pedestrian use. Percent shaded had the highest R² value at 0.21, while others were much lower. The SafetyScore also showed a weak relationship with foot traffic. These results suggest that other influences not measured in this study may guide where people choose to walk. Improvements such as expanding the study areas, including more safety variables, and conducting follow-up interviews may strengthen future research.This item is part of the Sustainable Built Environments collection. For more information, contact http://sbe.arizona.edu
Improving the Spatial-Temporal-Resolution of Dynamic MRI
No full textMagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) stands out as a unique, powerful, and valuable imagingmodality due to its combined features of non-invasiveness, absence of ionizing radiation hazards, relative safety, and exceptional capability to image soft tissues with superior contrast while revealing underlying metabolic processes. Fundamentally, MRI signals are derived from the physical phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). At the microscopic level, when a nucleus is exposed to an external magnetic field, the intrinsic angular momentum it possesses interacts with that field, generating a magnetic torque that induces the precession of the nuclear spin about the direction of the field at a specific rate, known as the “Larmor frequency”. The
Larmor frequency is linearly dependent on the filed strength and is unique to each type of nucleus. Macroscopically, when varying radiofrequency (RF) fields are applied on top of an existing static magnetic field across an object, the bulk spins of nuclei precessing at the Larmor frequency can be selectively “excited” from their equilibrium state. By introducing a train of spatially varying magnetic fields, the Larmor frequencies of the nuclei vary spatially, corresponding to the composite magnetic fields. This variation enables spatial encoding, a fundamental concept in MRI, wherein the spatial information of an object can be extracted by separating different frequency components of the detected signal. In conventional MRI, the proton in hydrogen serves as the primary nucleus of interest due to itsabundance in biological tissues. Imaging, therefore, relies on the ability of detecting the collective precession of protons in water, fat, and other organic molecules through the manipulation of RF
pulse sequences that govern the spatiotemporal magnetic fields. The unique foundation and process of imaging formation underlying MRI have inspired extensive interdisciplinary efforts across fields such as imaging science, engineering, and medicine. Advancements span coil design, shimming optimization, RF pulse and sequence engineering, novel image reconstruction algorithms, and innovative post-processing techniques, including tissue recognition, segmentation, and classification. These developments collectively aim to enhance the diagnostic capabilities and clinical applications of MRI, maximizing its benefits for patient care. This dissertation primarily focuses on the development of a pulse sequence and a corresponding super-resolution reconstruction method aimed at improving spatial and temporal resolution while reducing artifacts in MRI. The overall structure of this thesis is organized as follows: Chapter 1 introduces the general concepts of MRI, providing foundational knowledge. Chapter 2 presents the proposed novel complex-valued spatial-temporal super-resolution reconstruction framework, detailing its development and design. Chapter 3 discusses the numerical simulations conducted to validate the efficacy of the reconstruction approach. Chapter 4 describes the implementation of the pulse sequences, and the design of the phantom used for testing. Finally, Chapter 5 evaluates the performance of both the pulse sequences and the reconstruction method through experimental studies.Release after 05/26/202
Maladaptive Consumption: Identifying Novel Roots and Remedies for Undesirable Consumer Outcomes
No full textHow can we improve the lives of consumers? Recent initiatives like the “Better Marketing for a Better World” and “Transformative Consumer Research” movements have posed this question. This comes as no surprise as the pandemic, inflation, and other recent events have uncovered a number of issues that consumers are facing. From some individuals not investing enough for their retirement but gambling away money in sports betting to others struggling with mental health issues but refusing to get help from medical staff or people in their social surroundings. What are some factors that these consumers have in common, and how can the marketing discipline help promote their well-being? In three essays, this dissertation aims to provide answers to these questions by identifying two novel causes of maladaptive consumer outcomes and a promising intervention to prevent them. The first essay examines gamified financial platforms (e.g., investment apps equipped with leaderboards, levels, or other game elements) and how they can cause consumers to make poor financial decisions, treating investing more like gambling and thereby jeopardizing their financial well-being. The second essay investigates the rising phenomenon of entertainment betting, showing that wagering money on sports games, television shows, and other events in the hope of a quick thrill can actually backfire as illustrated by a diminished enjoyment among fans. Finally, the third essay shifts the level of analysis from potential causes of maladaptive consumer outcomes to a promising intervention, demonstrating that relationships with pets are capable of mitigating psychological pain to a greater extent than most interpersonal relationships, an effect that can be explained by consumers’ perceptions of unconditional love. Across the three essays, this dissertation employs a range of different methodologies from in-depth interviews and large-scale surveys to experimental methods and secondary data analyses.Release after 04/22/203
So Sexy It Hurts: Evolution of Sexually Selected Traits at Broad Phylogenetic Scales
No full textSexual selection has long been regarded as a key evolutionary force. However, in spite of the attention sexual selection has received, there remain many unanswered questions in the field (Wiens and Tuschhoff 2020). Why do many animals lack sexually selected traits, such as weapons or signals? Conversely, why do some clades have so many different traits? At what rates do sexually selected traits evolve, and are traits gained at greater rates than they are lost? Are sexually selected traits positively correlated, such that species “pile on” more and more traits, or do tradeoffs and trait costs result in negative correlations between different traits? How long do sexually selected traits last? The goal of this dissertation is to answer these questions using phylogenetic methods at broad scales. In Appendix A, we examine sexually selected traits across all animals. We find that most animals lack precopulatory sexually selected traits, but that there are hotspots of sexually selected trait evolution, particularly in arthropods and chordates. We find no evidence that the presence of lifestyles thought to reduce the need for sexually selected traits are related to the proportion of sexually selected traits in phyla. We also find little evidence that sexually selected traits impact diversification at large scales. We find a low rate of trait gain and high rate of loss regardless of the phylum, sensory modality, or selection mechanism involved. Finally, we find that traits of different sensory modalities are positively correlated with each other, and that similarly traits of different selection mechanisms are positively correlated with each other. In Appendix B, we focus on visual traits within tetrapods. Similar to our results across all animals, we find that most tetrapods lack visual sexually selected traits. However, among species with visual traits, multiple traits are common. Different types of visual traits, namely behavior, color, enhanced morphology, and specialized morphology, show neither clumped nor random phylogenetic distributions. Visual traits are lost much faster than they are gained across tetrapods, regardless of the type of trait. In most cases, rates are similar across different types of traits within tetrapod groups and across tetrapod groups within trait categories. Finally, types of visual traits are positively correlated with each other. In Appendix C, we focus on how long visual traits last at a macroevolutionary scale across tetrapods. We specifically hypothesized that traits that could be more easily obscured from predator’s view, either because they are hidden or temporary, would last longer than exposed traits. We find that even the oldest visual traits are much younger than the tetrapod groups in which they occur. We also find that hidden traits are significantly older than nonhidden traits, and that temporary traits are significantly older than permanent traits. These findings support the idea that reducing attention from predators may reduce trait loss, and that ecological factors such as predation may influence evolution at the scale of millions of years. Overall, the various parts of the dissertation add to our understanding of sexual selection by helping to address unanswered questions in the field.Release after 04/28/202
Unpacking Grit & Community Cultural Wealth: Examining the Academic Success of Undocumented Latinx Students in Higher Education
No full textBackground: In the U.S. higher education system, only 220,000 and 225,000 undocumented students are enrolled across two-year and four-year institutions, representing 2% of all students (Casas et al., 2021). This relatively low number is attributed to the several challenges that undocumented students face in their matriculation and enrollment due to their immigration status. In a politically hostile and unstable environment for undocumented immigrants, students face legal, financial, societal, institutional, and systemic challenges. Undocumented Latinx students endure these challenges even more so because they often come from low-income socioeconomic backgrounds, which makes them more vulnerable to academic failure (Casas et al., 2021). Despite these challenges, however, undocumented Latinx students persevere in their quest for academic success. Purpose: This study examines the experiences of undocumented Latinx college students, particularly the challenges that they faced throughout their educational journeys. Through the lens of grit (Duckworth, 2016) and Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005), the study also examines the students' grit in pursuing higher education and how they leveraged their cultural wealth to achieve this feat and academic success. Research Questions: The questions that guided this study were: 1) What systemic, societal, and institutional challenges do undocumented Latinx students face in pursuing higher education? 2) What factors influence grit, and how do they affect the educational success of undocumented Latinx students in higher education? 3)How does Community Cultural Wealth shape the grit of undocumented Latinx students in higher education? Methods: Three undocumented college students and a formerly DACAmented student were identified for the study through snowball sampling. The students were enrolled in a public four-year institution in the U.S. Northeast pseudonymously named Wesley University. Using semi-structured interviews, participants were asked questions to understand their challenges and how they leveraged their grit and Community Cultural Wealth to overcome them and find academic success. Their responses were recorded, transcribed, and coded to identify key themes and findings using the Dedoose software system. Findings: Several themes emerged from the interviews, which provided more insight into the students’ challenges and grit. Participant data revealed that their definition of academic success is more than just excellent grades and GPA; it is about accomplishing goals, purpose, and social capital. As the students navigated through higher education, they faced several systematic, societal, and institutional challenges because of their immigration status. Respectively, these challenges included but were not limited to difficulty in finding employment opportunities, questioning the American dream, and working with higher education staff who are not adequately prepared to work with undocumented students. Considering these challenges, the participants persevered in college because of their grit, which manifested differently for each participant. The participants then used their Community Cultural Community to find success, as their cultural wealth provided them with the aspirational, navigational, familial, linguistic, resistance, and social tools needed to excel. Conclusion: The findings suggest that undocumented Latinx students are motivated to excel in college because of something greater than themselves: giving back to their families and others in need who look like them and share the same experiences. This research can help higher education staff determine how to best support their undocumented Latinx students by leveraging their grit and cultural wealth, which dictate their purpose.Dissertation not available (per author’s request
Hidden Desires: Female-Female Sexuality in Early Modern Japan
No full textFemale-female sexuality has been largely ignored by scholars because of the complexities and difficulties of proving these relationships, this is the case with many cultures across the world. This study aims to investigate sexual and homosocial relationships between women in Early Modern Japan using primarily art and literature to show how women interacted and how they may have engaged in sexuality with one another, especially in women-only spaces such as the ōoku’s and nun covenants. Moreover, due the idea that female-female sexuality is viewed as masturbation due to the lack of a real phallus, this study investigates the roots of phallocentrist ideas, why this could be the case, and art that contests the phallocentric ideology and the male gaze
Whiteness and Color-Evasive Practices in the Overidentification of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
No full textThis qualitative study aims to demonstrate that the issue of overidentification of CLD students in special Education is due to practices of whiteness and color-evasiveness, as well as the lack of training among school psychologists. The study consists of the interviews of 5 school psychologists. The study examines their background, experience in evaluating CLD students, and training to work with the CLD population. The school psychologist's answers were analyzed through the framework of whiteness and color-evasiveness to answer two research questions. By analyzing the participants’ responses, results from this study demonstrated how different policies and practices interconnect to legally segregate CLD students in special education as they are perceived as deficient due to biased thinking and color-evasive approaches to reinforce concepts of whiteness. Results also showed that, although policies have been created to address the problem of overrepresentation, school psychologists, who are at the root of the problem, have not been trained to work with the CLD population in their programs and in their workplace