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Title: MODELING THE JOINT IMPACTS OF SOCIAL NETWORK AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT ON ADOLESCENTS’ PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Creator: Liu, Wei
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This research stems from the worldwide public health problem of childhood obesity and insufficient physical activity (PA) among adolescents. Studies have shown that both social networks and the built environment could affect PA, but how do they jointly exert influence? Understanding the scale and mechanism of this joint impact could shed light on developing an effective intervention to promote PA. The goal of this dissertation is to try to disentangle the joint influence of social networks...
Show moreThis research stems from the worldwide public health problem of childhood obesity and insufficient physical activity (PA) among adolescents. Studies have shown that both social networks and the built environment could affect PA, but how do they jointly exert influence? Understanding the scale and mechanism of this joint impact could shed light on developing an effective intervention to promote PA. The goal of this dissertation is to try to disentangle the joint influence of social networks and the built environment on changes in PA through social network analysis and test a novel intervention based on the findings from the social network models. This study uses two waves of Add Health data from two sample schools. Chapter Two investigates how school-based friendship networks could influence Physical Education (PE) class enrollment. Chapter Three examines the influence of home location, neighborhood characteristics, as well as the demographic characteristics and change in PA of peers who were nominated as friends in the Add Health social survey on high school student’s friend selection and PA dynamics between two academic years. Chapter Four presents a spatial agent-based model that was derived from the social network model and integrates a location-based mobile game similar to Pokémon Go as a PA-promoting intervention to test different intervention scenarios. Through this research, I demonstrate that friends’ PE enrollment status has a weak influence on the change of individual’s PE enrollment in two consecutive years. Another observation is that student’s total PA change can affect their PA behaviors. Contrarily, the built environment of the neighborhood did not prove to exert significant influence. Due to social influence, students participating in an intervention program may cause a change in PA of non-participants, i.e., we can observe a spillover effect of the intervention program. This dissertation enriches the field of health geography by integrating social network analysis and spatial thinking to jointly investigate the influence of environmental and social spaces and to facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the complex system of childhood obesity. It also extends existing models and provides a spatial agent-based model as an intervention exploration tool that can be calibrated for research and education by other scholars.
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Title: INVESTIGATING UGANDA’S HIGH HIV INCIDENCE AMONG YOUNG WOMEN IN AN ERA OF WIDESPREAD GAINS IN HIV PREVENTION AND TREATMENT
Creator: Namanya, Judith
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This dissertation examines the factors driving risky sexual behavior associated with reported high numbers of new HIV infections among young women in Uganda, using Mbarara District as a case study. Using the modified Social Ecological Model for Young Women’s Vulnerability to HIV Infection, the study investigates the contextual and broader structural factors, their interactions within and across multiple levels, and how they influence the sexual behaviors of individual young women in ways that...
Show moreThis dissertation examines the factors driving risky sexual behavior associated with reported high numbers of new HIV infections among young women in Uganda, using Mbarara District as a case study. Using the modified Social Ecological Model for Young Women’s Vulnerability to HIV Infection, the study investigates the contextual and broader structural factors, their interactions within and across multiple levels, and how they influence the sexual behaviors of individual young women in ways that increase their vulnerability to contracting HIV. The objectives of the study are: 1) Evaluate individual-level factors associated with sexual risk-taking behavior, specifically having unprotected sex, among young women ages 15-35 years; 2) Describe contextual and broader structural factors that make young women vulnerable to HIV-related risky sexual behaviors, and assess how these contextual factors interact with individual-level factors in ways that perpetuate high levels of HIV infection; and 3) Re-examine the connection between poverty and other economic factors to risky sexual behavior and vulnerability in the context of high HIV transmission among young women. The study used mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, combining household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and in-depth interviews. Household survey results show that risky sexual behavior i.e., having sex without a condom, is still high (over 48%) among the unmarried young women ages 15-35 years. Engagement in unprotected sex increased by age, with young adults reporting more unprotected sex encounters than adolescent girls. Those with primary or some secondary education were at an increased risk of having unprotected sex. Surprisingly, women with tertiary education were at higher risk of engaging in unprotected sex than those who had completed secondary education. Negative binomial regression analyses show that women with no employment and those with part-time employment were at an increased risk for unprotected sex compared to those with low paying but stable employment. These findings on education and HIV risk call for a careful reexamination of the link between higher education and HIV vulnerability to inform policy. Education policies and interventions need to focus on curricula that incorporate entrepreneurial skills at different educational levels from primary to college. Keeping girls in school under the protective eye of parents, guardians and teachers is key in reducing exposure to unprotected sex among young girls. Findings from the qualitative analysis revealed that sociocultural and structural factors, including social norms (premarital sex as taboo, early marriage pressures, subornation of girls and women), youth unfriendly HIV services (e.g., long waiting times, rude and unprofessional clinic staff), high unemployment rates, sexual harassment, exploitation by male employers, and discrimination were key factors perceived to drive risky sexual behavior in relation to HIV contraction among young women. The findings show that while many young women, especially those with children, engaged in risky transactional sexual behavior to meet basic needs, many younger women, including college-level ones, did so to meet materialistic wants and to fit-in with peers. Widespread availability of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) caused complacency among young people. HIV was no longer perceived as life threatening due to ARVs, which prevent progression into full-blown AIDS, morbidity and death. In fact, some young women were more scared of getting pregnant than contracting HIV. We suggest that efforts to reduce new HIV infections among young women and young men should target individual risk perception, and balance HIV treatment and prevention messages. Findings reveal a complex mix of dynamic and interacting factors operating at different levels that create context specific sexual behavioral risk socioscapes that sustain or accentuate the high rates of new HIV infections among the young women. Using a Social Ecological Model for Young Women’s Vulnerability to HIV as a guiding framework, we contend that efforts for addressing the high HIV infections among young women, including sexual behavioral change interventions, economic empowerment programs, should not only aim at individual women but also target factors operating at the sociocultural and structural levels.
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Title: Toward the detection of landscape features : clustering 3D points using spatial and thematic characteristics
Creator: Romero, Boleslo Edward
Date: 2010
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACTTOWARD THE DETECTION OF LANDSCAPE FEATURES:CLUSTERING 3D POINTS USING SPATIAL AND THEMATIC CHARACTERISTICSByBoleslo Edward RomeroThe study of Geography generally concerns phenomena at or near the surface of the earth. High resolutions of 3D quantitative and qualitative data can represent such phenomena as objects or fields. The data can be grouped to reveal representations of contiguous regions of spatial and thematic homogeneity. My thesis is concerned with finding groups of 3D...
Show moreABSTRACTTOWARD THE DETECTION OF LANDSCAPE FEATURES:CLUSTERING 3D POINTS USING SPATIAL AND THEMATIC CHARACTERISTICSByBoleslo Edward RomeroThe study of Geography generally concerns phenomena at or near the surface of the earth. High resolutions of 3D quantitative and qualitative data can represent such phenomena as objects or fields. The data can be grouped to reveal representations of contiguous regions of spatial and thematic homogeneity. My thesis is concerned with finding groups of 3D points with similar locations, spatial relationships, and thematic values of spectral reflectance. To accomplish this successfully, I synthesized elements of two geographic theories: point aggregation from cartographic generalization and hierarchical geographic ontology. My experimental design used synthetic 3D point data with spectral values. I employed the multi-dimensional Mean Shift clustering technique from the discipline of Computer Vision, and adapted a 3D range image segmentation accuracy assessment technique. I also contributed new techniques for segmentation quality assessment including two area under the curve indices and the development of new segmentation surface plots. Experimental evaluations included comparisons of the Mean Shift results with K-means clustering results, spatial resolution results, noise evaluation results, and the results of an alternative color configuration. I modified the variable sets to address uneven lighting conditions and employed the experimental methods to grouping real-world terrestrial LiDAR scan data. Though my new spatial relationship variable needs improvement, the methods yielded groups of points representing features in the LiDAR data and provided evidence of the potential for grouping richly attributed 3D points that represent geographic features.
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Title: A map of the Garden of Eden, before God destroy'd it with the flood
Date: 1738
Collection: Maps
Description: Map showing the Garden of Eden located inside a bend of a river formed by the confluences of the Hiddekel [Tigris], Perath [Euphrates], Pison [Pishon], and Gihon rivers, with the Tree of Life and Fountain of Life at its center.

Title: Science in the digital age : overcoming uncertainty and the adoption of Volunteered Geographic Information for science
Creator: Langley, Shaun Arthur
Date: 2014
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: With the advent of Web 2.0, the public is becoming increasingly interested in spatial data exploration. The potential for Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) to be adopted for Science through collaborations between researchers and non-scientists is of special interest to me. In particular, mobile devices and wireless communication permit the public to be more involved in research to a greater degree. Furthermore, the accuracy of these devices is rapidly improving, allowing me to address...
Show moreWith the advent of Web 2.0, the public is becoming increasingly interested in spatial data exploration. The potential for Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) to be adopted for Science through collaborations between researchers and non-scientists is of special interest to me. In particular, mobile devices and wireless communication permit the public to be more involved in research to a greater degree. Furthermore, the accuracy of these devices is rapidly improving, allowing me to address questions of uncertainty and error in data collections. Cooperation between researchers and the public integrates themes common to VGI and PGIS (Participatory Geographic Information) to bring about a new paradigm in GIScience. This dissertation discusses VGI in the context of a new paradigm, eScience, and the broader framework of Neogeography. I discuss current issues with data quality and uncertainty regarding VGI and detail one approach to quality credibility of the data. Finally, the dissertation outlines the framework for utilizing VGI in the context of case study in disease ecology for the purpose of surveillance of tsetse flies, the primary vector of African Trypanosomiasis. My system allows for two-way communication between researchers and the public for data collection, analysis, and the ultimate dissemination of results. Enhancing the role of the public to participate in these types of projects can improve both the efficacy of disease surveillance as well as stimulating greater interest in science.
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Title: Michigan State University Distinguished Professor Emeritus John M. Hunter talks about his reearch done in Africa
Creator: Hunter, John M. (John Melton), 1928-
Date: 2003-05-19
Collection: G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
Description: Peter Limb, Michigan State University Librarian and Africana Bibliographer introduces David Robinson, University Distinguished Professor of History and David Wiley, Director of the MSU African Studies Center who both interview John M. Hunter, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography. Hunter tells of his field research in the Gold Coast, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Nigeria in the mid-1950s, while serving as an MSU professor abroad. He also discusses the census mapping...
Show morePeter Limb, Michigan State University Librarian and Africana Bibliographer introduces David Robinson, University Distinguished Professor of History and David Wiley, Director of the MSU African Studies Center who both interview John M. Hunter, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography. Hunter tells of his field research in the Gold Coast, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Nigeria in the mid-1950s, while serving as an MSU professor abroad. He also discusses the census mapping model he developed and used in Ghana in 1960, which was funded by UNESCO and became a model used in many African countries. Other topics covered include medical geography, socio-economic geography, river blindness, schistosomiasis, elephantiasis, guinea worm disease and seasonal hunger.
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Title: Understanding the Spatial Concentration of Fatal and Non-Fatal Shootings Through Social Disorganization and Collective Efficacy Theory
Creator: Magee, Lauren A.
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Firearm violence continues to plague American cities across the United States. For example, the overall homicide rate was 5.3 per 100,000 in 2016 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). More simply stated, over five people become victims of lethal violence per 100,000 people across the country. Research demonstrates that firearm violence is higher in areas of social disadvantage and clusters in neighborhoods with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage (Cohen & Tita, 1999; Rosenfeld, Bray,...
Show moreFirearm violence continues to plague American cities across the United States. For example, the overall homicide rate was 5.3 per 100,000 in 2016 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). More simply stated, over five people become victims of lethal violence per 100,000 people across the country. Research demonstrates that firearm violence is higher in areas of social disadvantage and clusters in neighborhoods with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage (Cohen & Tita, 1999; Rosenfeld, Bray, Egley, 1999). Neighborhood and crime researchers have historically focused on the macro level of analysis when studying crime within and across neighborhoods, but more recent research displays that crime spatially clusters at the micro level (Braga et al., 2010, Weisburd et al., 2004). It is still unclear if specific measures of neighborhood characteristics, such as collective efficacy influences crime at the street segment level (Braga and Clark, 2014). Similarly, much firearm research is based on homicide incidents and omits more common non-fatal shootings. This study addresses these limitations by including both the macro (i.e., census tract) and micro (i.e., street segment) levels of analyses and includes both fatal and non-fatal shootings. Using the theoretical framework of social disorganization theory and collective efficacy theory, this research seeks to examine how fatal and non-fatal shootings cluster across neighborhoods, examine the patterns of disorder and disadvantage across neighborhoods and street segments, and improve the construct of collective efficacy through a unique measurement system. The study examines over 1500 fatal and non-fatal shootings in Indianapolis, Indiana, over a three-year time period. Independent measures of neighborhood disadvantage are drawn from the US Census Bureau, as well as a unique dataset from the City of Indianapolis. The data measures for disorder and collective efficacy allow for analyses at the neighborhood and street segment level. Descriptive statistics explain where fatal and non-fatal shootings cluster across the city and generalized hierarchical linear modeling was conducted to explain how disorder, social disadvantage and collective efficacy correlate with firearm violence. Results suggest fatal and non-fatal shootings cluster at both the neighborhood and street segment level and including non-fatal shootings into the study of gun violence gives a more robust picture of where firearm violence is occurring within the community. Additionally, community level measures vary at the street segment level when accounting for neighborhood levels of poverty. These findings have both methodological and policy implications that contribute to the study of communities and crime and firearm violence.
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Title: Lansing, Michigan and Shizuoka, Japan : a comparison of a realfunctional organization in two different environments
Creator: Masai, Yasuo, 1929-
Date: 1960
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: MEASURING AND MODELING THE EFFECTS OF SEA LEVEL RISE ON NEAR-COASTAL RIVERINE REGIONS : A GEOSPATIAL COMPARISON OF THE SHATT AL-ARAB RIVER IN SOUTHERN IRAQ WITH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA IN SOUTHERN LOUISIANA, USA.
Creator: Kadhim, Ameen Awad
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: There is a growing debate among scientists on how sea level rise (SLR) will impact coastal environments, particularly in countries where economic activities are sustained along these coasts. An important factor in this debate is how best to characterize coastal environmental impacts over time. This study investigates the measurement and modeling of SLR and effects on near-coastal riverine regions. The study uses a variety of data sources, including satellite imagery from 1975 to 2017, digital...
Show moreThere is a growing debate among scientists on how sea level rise (SLR) will impact coastal environments, particularly in countries where economic activities are sustained along these coasts. An important factor in this debate is how best to characterize coastal environmental impacts over time. This study investigates the measurement and modeling of SLR and effects on near-coastal riverine regions. The study uses a variety of data sources, including satellite imagery from 1975 to 2017, digital elevation data and previous studies. This research is focusing on two of these important regions: southern Iraq along the Shatt Al-Arab River (SAR) and the southern United States in Louisiana along the Mississippi River Delta (MRD). These sites are important for both their extensive low-lying land and for their significant coastal economic activities. The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter one introduces the topic. Chapter two compares and contrasts bothregions and evaluates escalating SLR risk. Chapter three develops a coupled human and natural system (CHANS) perspective for SARR to reveal multiple sources of environmental degradation in this region. Alfa century ago SARR was an important and productive region in Iraq that produced fruits like dates, crops, vegetables, and fish. By 1975 the environment of this region began to deteriorate, and since then, it is well-documented that SARR has suffered under human and natural problems. In this chapter, I use the CHANS perspective to identify the problems, and which ones (human or natural systems) are especially responsible for environmental degradation in SARR. I use several measures of ecological, economic, and social systems to outline the problems identified through the CHANS framework. SARR has experienced extreme weather changes from 1975 to 2017 resulting in lower precipitation (-17mm) and humidity (-5.6%), higher temperatures (1.6 C), and sea level rise, which are affecting the salinity of groundwater and Shatt Al Arab river water. At the same time, human systems in SARR experienced many problems including eight years of war between Iraq and Iran, the first Gulf War, UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Iraq, and the second Gulf War. I modeled and analyzed the regions land cover between 1975 and 2017 to understand how the environment has been affected, and found that climate change is responsible for what happened in this region based on other factors. Chapter four constructs and applies an error propagation model to elevation data in the Mississippi River Delta region (MRDR). This modeling both reduces and accounts for the effects of digital elevation model (DEM) error on a bathtub inundation model used to predict the SLR risk in the region. Digital elevation data is essential to estimate coastal vulnerability to flooding due to sea level rise. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1 Arc-Second Global is considered the best free global digital elevation data available. However, inundation estimates from SRTM are subject to uncertainty due to inaccuracies in the elevation data. Small systematic errors in low, flat areas can generate large errors in inundation models, and SRTM is subject to positive bias in the presence of vegetation canopy, such as along channels and within marshes. In this study, I conduct an error assessment and develop statistical error modeling for SRTM to improve the quality of elevation data in these at-risk regions. Chapter five applies MRDR-based model from chapter four to enhance the SRTM 1 Arc-Second Global DEM data in SARR. As such, it is the first study to account for data uncertainty in the evaluation of SLR risk in this sensitive region. This study transfers an error propagation model from MRDR to the Shatt al-Arab river region to understand the impact of DEM error on an inundation model in this sensitive region. The error propagation model involves three stages. First, a multiple regression model, parameterized from MRDR, is used to generate an expected DEM error surface for SARR. This surface is subtracted from the SRTM DEM for SARR to adjust it. Second, residuals from this model are simulated for SARR: these are mean-zero and spatially autocorrelated with a Gaussian covariance model matching that observed in MRDR by convolution filtering of random noise. More than 50 realizations of error were simulated to make sure a stable result was realized. These realizations were subtracted from the adjusted SRTM to produce DEM realizations capturing potential variation. Third, the DEM realizations are each used in bathtub modeling to estimate flooding area in the region with 1 m of sea level rise. The distribution of flooding estimates shows the impact of DEM error on uncertainty in inundation likelihood, and on the magnitude of total flooding. Using the adjusted DEM realizations 47 ± 2 percent of the region is predicted to flood, while using the raw SRTM DEM only 28% of the region is predicted to flood.
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Title: An assessment of the geographic knowledge and understandings of fifth grade students in Michigan
Creator: Bettis, Norman Clyde, 1938-
Date: 1974
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Two models for the inferential analysis of central place patterns
Creator: Tiedemann, Clifford Earl
Date: 1966
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Survival geography of tropical South America
Creator: McGuire, Martin E.
Date: 1964
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: EXPLORING NEIGHBORHOOD PATHWAYS TO HEALTH : AN INTEGRATED ANALYSIS ACROSS SCALES
Creator: Rzotkiewicz, Amanda T.
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This research is a synthesis and discussion of two papers that apply diverse geographic techniques to closely examine neighborhoods and health, introduced in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is titled, “Systematic review of the use of Google Street View in health research: Sampling, exposure assessment, prevention or monitoring, and health policy compliance” and of 54 studies qualifying for the review, one (2%) utilized GSV for sampling, forty-four (82%) for exposure assessment, and six (11%) for policy...
Show moreThis research is a synthesis and discussion of two papers that apply diverse geographic techniques to closely examine neighborhoods and health, introduced in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is titled, “Systematic review of the use of Google Street View in health research: Sampling, exposure assessment, prevention or monitoring, and health policy compliance” and of 54 studies qualifying for the review, one (2%) utilized GSV for sampling, forty-four (82%) for exposure assessment, and six (11%) for policy monitoring. Most studies reported considerable benefits of GSV, when compared to non-virtual methods, through the reduction of research time and costs, making it a promising tool for automated environmental assessment for health research. Chapter 3 explores a relatively novel pathway to health (the microbiome) and is titled, “Evaluating the relationship between neighborhood vegetation and the human microbiome: implications for green space-health research”. Neighborhood vegetation scores and impervious surface area were compared to the microbial genera and biodiversity of the mouth, ears, eyes, nose and rectum (a surrogate of the gut) human microbiomes of postmortem residents of Wayne County, Michigan (n = 98). Relationships between neighborhood greenness and microbial composition varied by neighborhood size and area of the body. Results suggest that each body area is a unique microbial niche that interacts with the environment in different ways, an important consideration for targeted modification of the microbial environment. Overall, this research illustrates how an integrated analysis of neighborhoods and health has the potential to improve both health research and public policy across a wide range of geographic contexts and scales.
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Title: Small-multiples and animation : measuring user performance with wildfire visualization
Creator: Socia, Kristie Marie
Date: 2011
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Recent investigations in cognitive psychology and cartography have examined the communicative efficiency of animation and static small-multiple visualizations on knowledge construction and apprehension. In theory, animation may be the most congruent method to represent a dynamic geographic process. However, some have suggested that cartographic animations are too complex and transient, making them difficult to comprehend. Others have demonstrated that static small-multiples facilitate...
Show moreRecent investigations in cognitive psychology and cartography have examined the communicative efficiency of animation and static small-multiple visualizations on knowledge construction and apprehension. In theory, animation may be the most congruent method to represent a dynamic geographic process. However, some have suggested that cartographic animations are too complex and transient, making them difficult to comprehend. Others have demonstrated that static small-multiples facilitate comprehension, inference and learning and afford map-readers interactive capabilities that are unavailable in most conventional animations. This thesis empirically investigates the influences of map-design and temporal resolution on apprehension and inference affordance, in the context of wildfire visualization. A human-subjects experiment was conducted to measure participants task accuracy, response time, and confidence between animated and small-multiple maps. The results reveal the importance of both map design and temporal resolution; small-multiples and fine temporal resolution maps elicit more accurate and more confident responses from readers. While participants performed better with the small-multiple maps, they prefer to view animated maps. The results of this research suggest that map type is an important factor that influences response time, while temporal resolution is significant for accuracy and confidence yet inversely related to participants overall map preference.
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Title: Wildlife, man, and competition for land in Kenya : a geographical analysis
Creator: Capone, Donald L., 1933-
Date: 1971
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: CHINA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SOFT TARGET ON HUMAN HEALTH : A MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY STUDY OF HAZE POLLUTION IMPACTS ON MATERNAL AND INFANT HEALTH IN XIANYANG 2008-2016
Creator: Zhang, Qiong
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACTCHINA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SOFT TARGET ON HUMAN HEALTH: A MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY STUDY OF HAZE POLLUTION IMPACTS ON MATERNAL AND INFANT HEALTH IN XIANYANG 2008-2016 By Qiong Zhang Since the adoption of economic reform in 1978, China has invested heavily in industry, commercial and residential construction, and transportation in the country. The rural-to-urban migration in search of economic opportunities has led to rapid sprawling of China’s large and mid-sized cities. Outdated...
Show moreABSTRACTCHINA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SOFT TARGET ON HUMAN HEALTH: A MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY STUDY OF HAZE POLLUTION IMPACTS ON MATERNAL AND INFANT HEALTH IN XIANYANG 2008-2016 By Qiong Zhang Since the adoption of economic reform in 1978, China has invested heavily in industry, commercial and residential construction, and transportation in the country. The rural-to-urban migration in search of economic opportunities has led to rapid sprawling of China’s large and mid-sized cities. Outdated environmental policies and lack of strict regulation and control of harmful stationary and mobile sources of air pollution have led to high haze concentrations and growing public health concerns in China. As one of the most vulnerable population groups, as well as the core of every family, the public is concerned that haze will cause detrimental health effects on the people in general, and among pregnant women, mothers and infants in particular. The goals of this dissertation research are to understand the history and evolution of Chinese environmental policies and to investigate the impacts of maternal haze exposure on maternal health and adverse birth outcomes in a mid-sized city in China. The objectives are (1) to review and summarizes the evolution of environmental policies and regulations from a structuralist perspective to understand the origin and persistence of rising haze in the country; (2) to utilize remote sensing imagery and ground monitoring sites, to conduct a haze assessment in Xianyang City, a mid-sized city experiencing rising levels of haze due to urban expansion and increased vehicle transportation and industrial emissions; and (3) to conduct an investigation of haze impacts on maternal and infant health in Xianyang City, utilizing a primary dataset of a sample of infants born at Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine First Affiliated Hospital from January 2008 to December 2016. A Human Ecology conceptual framework is used to understand the relationships among haze, maternal and infant health, and environmental and health policies. The findings from this study showed even though China has a long history and rich variety of environmental policies and regulations, the hierarchical structure in the Target Pyramid System and the highly consistent party consciousness in the “One Position Two Jobs” system have limited government officials from enacting environmental protection to ensure public health. The effect of this limitation is demonstrated by observations of aerosol loading using satellite imagery, specifically the Ultraviolet Aerosol Index (UVAI) obtained from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) carried by Aura satellite. OMI imagery data showed that Xianyang has experienced significant increasing trends in severity, duration, and coverage of haze from 2008 to 2016. In terms of public health, maternal exposure to increasing haze levels during the first and third trimesters had significant effects on lowering infant’s birth weight. Maternal co-morbidities including Cardiomyopathy, Chronic Maternal Co-Morbidity, Diabetes, Gynecology, Hypertension and Obstetric Maternal Co-Morbidity mediate the haze exposure and reduced birth weight relationships. These findings demonstrate that chronic exposure to high dosages of haze has negative effects on mother’s health, which in turn impacts infant health as evidenced by significant lowering of birth weight. In conclusion, under the Chinese Communist Party’s managing priority pyramid, maintaining the bureaucratic legitimacy of the party and pursuing economic development are Superior Target goals. However, to ensure population health, it is important to entitle public health and health care professional to receive authoritative power to provide environmental health education particularly for susceptible population groups such as pregnant women, mothers and infants about the untoward health effects of environmental pollution.
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Title: GEOGRAPHIC APPLICATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE-RICH MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES IN SPATIOTEMPORAL DATA ANALYSIS
Creator: Hatami bahman beiglou, Pouyan
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In the modern realm of pervasive, frequent, sizable and instant data capturing with advancements in instrumentation, data generation and data gathering techniques, we can benefit new prospects to comprehend and analyze the role of geography in everyday life. However, traditional geographic data analytics are now strictly challenged by the volume, velocity, variety and veracity of the data requiring analysis to extract value. As a result, geographic data science has garnered great interest in...
Show moreIn the modern realm of pervasive, frequent, sizable and instant data capturing with advancements in instrumentation, data generation and data gathering techniques, we can benefit new prospects to comprehend and analyze the role of geography in everyday life. However, traditional geographic data analytics are now strictly challenged by the volume, velocity, variety and veracity of the data requiring analysis to extract value. As a result, geographic data science has garnered great interest in the past two decades. Considering that much of data science’s success is formed outside of geography, there is an increased risk within such perspectives that location will remain simply as an additional column within a database, no more or less important than any other feature. Geographic data science combines this data with spatial and temporal components. The spatial and temporal dependence allow us to interpolate and extrapolate to fill gaps in the presence of inadequate data and infer reasonable approximations elsewhere by incorporating information from diverse data types and sources. However, within scientific communities there exist arguments regarding whether geographic data science is a scientific discipline of its own. Because data science is still in its early adoption phases in geography, geographic data science is required to develop its unique concepts, differentiating itself from other disciplines such as statistics or computer science. This becomes possible when geographers, within a community of practice, are enabled to learn and connect the current tools, methods, and domain knowledge to address the existing challenges of geographic data analysis. To take a step toward that purpose, in this dissertation, three knowledge-rich applications of data science in the analysis of geographic spatiotemporal big datasets are studied, and the opportunities and challenges facing this research along the way are explored. The first chapter of this dissertation is allocated to review the challenges and opportunities in the era of spatiotemporal big data, followed by tackling three different problems within geography, one within the subfield of human geography, and two within physical geography. Finally, in the last chapter, some final thoughts on the current state of geographic data science are discussed and the potential for future studies are considered.
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Title: SINGAPORE, MICHIGAN, A BURIED COASTAL GHOST TOWN : A GEOGRAPHICAL CASE STUDY AND ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY MICHIGAN
Creator: Church, Michelle Lynn
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Michigan’s landscape has undergone significant alterations due to human activities during the nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, Michigan had become a leading lumber producer in the United States. However, by the turn of the twentieth century, the logging industry shifted from the East Coast westward. This led to fragmented landscapes, the result of interactions between the logging industry decision-makers, regional policymakers, and wood product consumers. Not all Michigan...
Show moreMichigan’s landscape has undergone significant alterations due to human activities during the nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, Michigan had become a leading lumber producer in the United States. However, by the turn of the twentieth century, the logging industry shifted from the East Coast westward. This led to fragmented landscapes, the result of interactions between the logging industry decision-makers, regional policymakers, and wood product consumers. Not all Michigan communities were equally affected by the logging boom. Some landscapes, like those around Singapore, Michigan, were transformed so significantly they were no longer economically viable. Using the photographic record, this research explores the concept of settlement abandonment due to natural resource depletion. It contextualizes the images with narratives that identify the motivations and actions of key players in the logging industry around Singapore and assesses the impacts of the logging industry on the environment and community. These materials suggest that a combination of rampant demand for lumber, a lack of government regulation, and an indifferent local population led to the decimation of the forests surrounding Singapore. Due to the pressures put on the landscape as a means of profit, this area has been forever altered.
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Title: Evaluating the ecogeographical effects of earth's largest terrestrial herbivore
Creator: Nagelkirk, Ryan Lee
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Savannas cover a fifth of Earth's land surface, are home to over a half billion people, and disproportionately affect interannual variability of the global carbon cycle. In Africa, these open, grassy and sparsely wooded habitats support pastoralist cultures, the world's largest array of megafauna and thriving tourist economies. However, savannas and their uses are under threat: woody plant encroachment linked to increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is reducing grassy cover required by...
Show moreSavannas cover a fifth of Earth's land surface, are home to over a half billion people, and disproportionately affect interannual variability of the global carbon cycle. In Africa, these open, grassy and sparsely wooded habitats support pastoralist cultures, the world's largest array of megafauna and thriving tourist economies. However, savannas and their uses are under threat: woody plant encroachment linked to increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is reducing grassy cover required by both domestic livestock and wildlife, while also encroaching on the open views of wildlife critical to tourism. Yet, understanding of the determinants of savanna woody cover (bushes and trees) is limited. To this end, a growing number of site-specific studies have found that tree mortality rates in protected areas are principally controlled by African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana). However, it is not known whether these impacts significantly affect the total woody cover of the larger landscapes and region. This dissertation focuses on quantifying the relationship between elephant densities and savanna woody cover in protected areas across elephants' Eastern African range. Research questions are addressed in three self-contained chapters. Chapter 1 tests multiple approaches to mapping savanna woody cover fractions across 12 protected areas (PAs) using Landsat imagery, and presents a novel approach to reference data generation. The results show a machine learning approach, Random Forests, produces the most accurate maps and demonstrates that accurate maps do not require more than a single annual image - which is advantageous given the general image scarcity in these areas. In Chapter 2, the most accurate mapping approach from Chapter 1 is used to produce over 30 years of savanna woody cover data. These data are then used to assess whether there is a relationship between woody cover and elephant densities across the 12 PAs, as well as for specific landscapes within the PAs. Results point toward climate, principally wet season precipitation, being the major determinant of woody cover across the PAs (R2 = 0.38, p = 0.03), though elephants were linked to increased woody cover on hill slopes far from permanent water bodies (R2 = 0.41, p = 0.03). In addition, areas near water contain consistently low levels of woody cover unexplained by any of the variables considered. Last, Chapter 3 presents a meta-analysis of the literature comparing the relative impacts of elephants and fire on woody cover. The majority of studies (80.3%) find elephants to be the primary disturbance, with the relative dominance of the two disturbances linked to climate. The coolest and wettest savannas are more likely to be dominated by fire, while elephants are most likely to dominate across a comparatively broad set of environmental conditions. Overall, the evidence presented here suggests (1) both overall woody cover and the relative impacts of elephants and fire are principally regulated by climate; (2) elephants, perhaps through the dispersal of seeds and nutrients, increase woody cover on hillslopes far from permanent water bodies; (3) areas near water are in a long-term state of low woody cover, potentially driven by disturbances, and (4) given the dominant role of elephants as a disturbance in the majority of sites and climates, conservationists should consider increasing elephant populations as a means of mitigating the woody encroachment threatening Africa's savannas, wildlife and pastoralist cultures.
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Title: The role of International Soybean Trade in Telecoupled Human and Natural Systems
Creator: Herzberger, Anna Jean
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: International food trade and globalized agriculture production connects humans and the environment around the world. As consumption demands are increasingly met abroad by importing food products, environmental and socioeconomic effects of production are left in the producing region, while the effects on the importing countries’ domestic production remain understudied due to the complexity and low visibility of the impacts. As population growth increases the caloric demand and rising affluence...
Show moreInternational food trade and globalized agriculture production connects humans and the environment around the world. As consumption demands are increasingly met abroad by importing food products, environmental and socioeconomic effects of production are left in the producing region, while the effects on the importing countries’ domestic production remain understudied due to the complexity and low visibility of the impacts. As population growth increases the caloric demand and rising affluence drives changes in consumption patterns, connections via food trade will continue to increase. Therefore, to identify local impacts of global phenomena, this dissertation analyses the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of international soybean trade within Brazil (e.g., largest producer), China (e.g., largest consumer) and the U.S. (e.g., the former largest producer). Drawing from both natural and social science disciplines, global trade data, satellite-imagery, farmer interviews and soil samples were combined for an interdisciplinary assessment of how international soybean trade couples distant human and the environment systems, the true extent of land-use change driven by soybean trade and the resulting impacts within each respective country. Chapter 1 provides a review of the published literature and background on international soybean trade and production. In chapter 2, the influence of China’s soybean demand was measured on Brazil’s production and trade. The results suggest that export-oriented soybean expansion in Brazil displaced the production of other crops and increased imports from nearby countries. For chapter 3, the impact of imported soybeans on production in China’s main agricultural region was explored. Competition from imported soybeans has resulted in many farmers switching cultivation to corn or to abandon farming in search of more lucrative options. This cultivation shift requires changes in management that involve increased nitrogen inputs and residual crop biomass – both of which have resulted in environmental spillovers. Chapter 4 furthered the analysis by considering the impacts of farmer cultivation and management decisions on soil properties. Soil texture, pH, total organic carbon and 16S rRNA gene sequence were used in combination with detailed farmer management surveys to understand how changes in residue management effect efficiency, productivity, profitability and sustainability of the system. The results indicated that the accumulation of residual corn biomass has increased the use of residue fires and decreased the amount of crop residue being returned to the soil. The culminating chapter used an agent-based modeling (ABM) to integrate the above chapters into a TeleABM. The teleABM models land use change in Brazil and China based on global soybean demand. Land-use change decisions are made by farmer agents which have parametrized using the farmer interviews. Next, the farmer agent cultivation and management decisions have environmental impacts that were determined by analyzing the soil samples under the context of management decisions. Finally, production and the impact of farmer agent decisions on the soil properties feedback to the farmer’s future cultivation and management decisions. Because of the economic, environmental and political importance of international soybean trade, the results of this dissertation are of great interest for future soybean production and trade between the specified countries as well as food security and environmental sustainability across the world.
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