5,365 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    Graduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

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    Spatial adaptive settlement systems in archaeology. Modelling long-term settlement formation from spatial micro interactions

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    Despite research history spanning more than a century, settlement patterns still hold a promise to contribute to the theories of large-scale processes in human history. Mostly they have been presented as passive imprints of past human activities and spatial interactions they shape have not been studied as the driving force of historical processes. While archaeological knowledge has been used to construct geographical theories of evolution of settlement there still exist gaps in this knowledge. Currently no theoretical framework has been adopted to explore them as spatial systems emerging from micro-choices of small population units. The goal of this thesis is to propose a conceptual model of adaptive settlement systems based on complex adaptive systems framework. The model frames settlement system formation processes as an adaptive system containing spatial features, information flows, decision making population units (agents) and forming cross scale feedback loops between location choices of individuals and space modified by their aggregated choices. The goal of the model is to find new ways of interpretation of archaeological locational data as well as closer theoretical integration of micro-level choices and meso-level settlement structures. The thesis is divided into five chapters, the first chapter is dedicated to conceptualisation of the general model based on existing literature and shows that settlement systems are inherently complex adaptive systems and therefore require tools of complexity science for causal explanations. The following chapters explore both empirical and theoretical simulated settlement patterns based dedicated to studying selected information flows and feedbacks in the context of the whole system. Second and third chapters explore the case study of the Stone Age settlement in Estonia comparing residential location choice principles of different periods. In chapter 2 the relation between environmental conditions and residential choice is explored statistically. The results confirm that the relation is significant but varies between different archaeological phenomena. In the third chapter hunter-fisher-gatherer and early agrarian Corded Ware settlement systems were compared spatially using inductive models. The results indicated a large difference in their perception of landscape regarding suitability for habitation. It led to conclusions that early agrarian land use significantly extended land use potential and provided a competitive spatial benefit. In addition to spatial differences, model performance was compared and the difference was discussed in the context of proposed adaptive settlement system model. Last two chapters present theoretical agent-based simulation experiments intended to study effects discussed in relation to environmental model performance and environmental determinism in general. In the fourth chapter the central place foragingmodel was embedded in the proposed model and resource depletion, as an environmental modification mechanism, was explored. The study excluded the possibility that mobility itself would lead to modelling effects discussed in the previous chapter. The purpose of the last chapter is the disentanglement of the complex relations between social versus human-environment interactions. The study exposed non-linear spatial effects expected population density can have on the system and the general robustness of environmental inductive models in archaeology to randomness and social effect. The model indicates that social interactions between individuals lead to formation of a group agency which is determined by the environment even if individual cognitions consider the environment insignificant. It also indicates that spatial configuration of the environment has a certain influence towards population clustering therefore providing a potential pathway to population aggregation. Those empirical and theoretical results showed the new insights provided by the complex adaptive systems framework. Some of the results, including the explanation of empirical results, required the conceptual model to provide a framework of interpretation

    Geo-Information Harvesting from Social Media Data

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    As unconventional sources of geo-information, massive imagery and text messages from open platforms and social media form a temporally quasi-seamless, spatially multiperspective stream, but with unknown and diverse quality. Due to its complementarity to remote sensing data, geo-information from these sources offers promising perspectives, but harvesting is not trivial due to its data characteristics. In this article, we address key aspects in the field, including data availability, analysisready data preparation and data management, geo-information extraction from social media text messages and images, and the fusion of social media and remote sensing data. We then showcase some exemplary geographic applications. In addition, we present the first extensive discussion of ethical considerations of social media data in the context of geo-information harvesting and geographic applications. With this effort, we wish to stimulate curiosity and lay the groundwork for researchers who intend to explore social media data for geo-applications. We encourage the community to join forces by sharing their code and data

    Catchment based analysis of macronutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and organic carbon dynamics: new modelling and participatory tools

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    Ecosystem services (ESs) are increasingly being considered in decision-making with respect to mitigating future climate impacts. To capture complex variation in spatial and temporal dynamics, ecosystem models require spatially explicit data that are often difficult to obtain for model development and validation. Citizen science allows for the participation of trained citizen volunteers in research or regulatory activities, resulting in increased data collection and increased participation of the general public in resource management. Despite the increasing experience in citizen science, these approaches have seldom been used in the modelling of provisioning ecosystem services. The development of new approaches for the analysis of long-term changes in riverine carbon, hydrological and nutrient cycles is important to identify potential alteration on the biogeochemical cycles and potential impacts on the ecosystem services provided to the local population. The Basin scale approach is useful to evaluate the pressures on river ecosystems that may be distant from the receiving watercourse, including the effects of soil or water management activities that propagate or amplify downstream. However, the lack of process-based and basin-scale models for carbon transport has limited effective basin management of organic carbon fluxes from soils, through river networks and to receiving marine waters. In the present study, were examined the temporal and spatial drivers in macronutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) and sediment delivery, carbon storage and sequestration and water yield in a major Italian river catchment and under different NBS scenarios. Information on climate, land use, soil and river conditions, as well as future climate scenarios, were used to explore future (2050) benefits of NBS on local and basin scales, followed the national and European directives related to water quality (Directive 2000/60/EC) and habitat (Directive 92/43/EEC). It was developed and validate a spatially semi-distributed mass balance modelling approach to estimate organic carbon delivery at a sub-basin scale and which allows exploration of alternative river basin management scenarios and their impact on DOC and POC dynamics. The model is built as an open-source plugin for QGIS and can be easily integrated with other basin scale decision support models on nutrient and sediment export. Furthermore, was performed an estimation of the benefits of individual and combined NBS approaches related to river restoration and catchment reforestation. To complete the ESs overall evaluation and prioritization was developed a new method in order to attributing a weight to the best NBS scenarios based on the natural stoichiometric ratio between the elements carbon, silicon, nitrogen, phosphorus (C:Si:N:P

    The mobility and identity of a Pehuenche community as expressed through their material culture (Alto BiobĂ­o, Chile)

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    This research focuses on the changing role of mobility within one Pehuenche comunidad, CauñicĂș, which is part one of twenty legally recognised Pehuenche comunidades in southern Chile, South America. Working within an interdisciplinary perspective, I use archaeological, ethnographic, and historical sources, adopting a diachronic view to reflect on the processes of change that this social group has gone through: from highly mobile pastoralist in the Colonial period, to becoming validated officially as ÂŽindigenous communitiesÂŽ or comunidades indĂ­genas by the Chilean state in the current context of globalisation. A defining characteristic of the Pehuenche has been the seasonal movement of some families from their annual residence in the lower valleys in colder seasons, to the highland pastures in summer, where they take their livestock and collect pinenuts from the Araucaria trees. However, this seasonal movement is in decline, and pinenuts may never have been as important a resource as the ‘Pehuenche’ ethnonym suggests. This research includes original ethnographic fieldwork to study how the socio-political organisation, economy, and perception of the landscape and their own past, as well as state policies have influenced the material culture and settlement organisation. This generates a landscape in which present and past material culture co-exist and can be explained from, and through, their cycle of mobility, with a strong sense of identity embedded in these aspects of Pehuenche culture. This maintenance of practices such as rituals, seasonal movements, and the material expressions connect the present Pehuenches to past ways of life. This approach gives importance to the historical processes of how mobile groups interacted with colonial societies and responded to changes through their material culture. It also serves to reflect on their collective identity, which is not only sustained through their current, more limited, mobility in a context of a globalised wider society, but in certain characteristics of their daily and ritual material assemblages

    Stimulating the Malaysian Rural Community Centres through the rural digital economy under the Smart Village Enablement Program

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    The Malaysian government, through the Ministry of Rural Development, has identified the digital economy as a vehicle for catalysing socioeconomic improvement in the country, with a focus on rural communities. The introduction of the Smart Village Enablement Program would serve as the catalyst for the rural digital connectivity that drives the socio-economic program to reduce the digital division and exclusion issues plaguing the rural communities. The aim of this study was to study the development of the rural digital economy in Malaysia, specifically to identify the determinants of the initiation of the rural digital economy and analyse the impact of initiating the rural digital economy. This study also aims to recommend the framework for the Smart Village Enablement Program. The qualitative grounded theory approach was adopted loosely, adapting the Theory of Social Change to identify the factors and their expected impacts. Cluster sampling was done to select 13 Rural Community Centres(RCCs)for the studies to accurately represent the total of 191 RCCs under the ministry of rural development purview nationwide.The data collected was through semi-structured interviews with the selected 13 RCCs’managers. The findings strongly support RCC as the rural digital hub for rural communities. The RCC will help spread the rural digital economy for rural communities. The RCC would need to be strategically located, have all the required internet connectivity to facilitate the digital platform for the rural digital services, and have full empowerment of the respective RCC Managers. With the full establishment of the RCC, the relevant sustainable programmes and activities could be implemented to drive the effectiveness of the RCC, together with ethnic integration and demographic assimilation of the rural communities. The findings of this study contributed greatly to the academic’s writings on the smart village conception and the rural digital economics program. Industry white papers and case studies were visibly evidenced, but the resources of the academic scholars were limited. On the other hand, there were many apparent practical business applications for the advent of rural digital and smart village enablement programs, with the obvious potential for future revenue by the respective industry players. In short, because the field was considered new and only established in the last decade, there would be many areas for future studies of the subject matter

    Rural implementation of connected, autonomous and electric vehicles

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    Connected, autonomous and electric vehicles (CAEV) are at the forefront of transport development. They are intended to provide efficient, safe and sustainable transport solutions to solve everyday transport problems including congestion, accidents and pollution. However, despite significant industry and government investment in the technology, little has been done in the way of exploring the implementation of CAEVs in rural scenarios. This thesis investigates the potential for rural road CAEV implementation in the UK. In this work, the rural digital and physical infrastructure requirements for CAEVs were first investigated through physical road-based experimentation of CAEV technologies. Further investigations into the challenges facing the rural implementation of CAEVs were then conducted through qualitative consultations with transport planning professionals. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of these investigations revealed a need for better rural infrastructure, and an overall lack of understanding regarding CAEVs and their rural implementation requirements amongst the transport planning industry. The need for a measurement tool for transport planners was identified, to expose the industry to, and educate them about, CAEVs and their rural potential. As a result, a CAEV Rural Transport Index (CARTI) is proposed as a simple measurement tool to assess the potential for rural CAEV implementation. The CARTI was implemented, and its effectiveness tested, through further consultation with transport planning professionals. The results indicate the potential for the CARTI to be used as a component of decision-making processes at both local authority and national levels. In conclusion, effective rural CAEV implementation relies on transport planners having a strong understanding of rural community transport needs, the solutions CAEV technologies can offer and the supporting infrastructure they require. Further, the CARTI was found to be an effective tool to support the development of this required understanding and recommendations have therefore been made for its future development

    Guiding ‘The Intelligent English Traveller’: The Collaborative and Interactive Victorian Serialized Handbook

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    Relying on a range of nineteenth-century genres and authorial voices, “Guiding the ‘Intelligent English Traveller’” spotlights John Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers as collaborative, interactive, and multidisciplinary texts. Guidebooks from the Victorian age emerged from epistolary and travelogue genres, cited Romantic poets, depended on contributions from the great minds of the day, and informed contemporary fictional representations of travel. The Handbooks for Travellers were the exemplar of the serial guide. Their multimedia and -modal form, diverse author- and editorship, and commercial brand make them a possibly unique example of material history and publishing practice, as illustrated in my opening chapter, which relies on evidence gathered at the John Murray Archive in the National Library of Scotland. Subsequent chapters tracing “Murrays” in the travel writing and fiction of George Eliot and Henry James underscore the Handbooks’ rhetorical influence and cultural reach. The coda to this project is more experimental, describing the development of an interactive digital map representing Murray’s Handbook series for Europe. This map illustrates the temporal and geographic changes in the Murray series using the first three Handbooks as examples. My application of computational methods for interpreting the Handbooks emphasizes that these texts were tools that anticipate the iterative, interdisciplinary, intertextual, and multivocal processes at the heart of digital humanities work.Doctor of Philosoph

    Improving Post-Conflict Housing Reconstruction Projects by Strengthening Stakeholder Engagement During the Project Planning Stage

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    In the aftermath of a major conflict, the reconstruction of housing is one of the first building blocks that can help start to restore a nation. This often requires contributions from a range of international parties to initiate reconstruction and aide programs that would enable the commencement of the recovery process, coordinate activities and help to ensure deadlines are met. Nevertheless, the immediate need to resettle the displaced population, as well as the tendency for donors to set early deadlines for the use of funds, can often result in poorly designed housing units that fail to meet the needs of inhabitants, leading to them becoming abandoned or altered. Post-conflict housing reconstruction necessitates careful planning and preparation; however, previous housing reconstruction programs have been hindered by inadequate planning that has hampered communication and coordination of project activities. It has been argued that current planning activities initiated and set by international aid agencies do not engage stakeholders effectively, thereby excluding certain stakeholder groups in the interest of time and speed. The literature further indicated that there is a significant dearth of theoretical and practical knowledge with respect to the planning stages of post-conflict housing reconstruction projects. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop a model to strengthen stakeholder collaboration during the planning stage of housing reconstruction projects under post-conflict conditions. This with a view to helping to improve the design and delivery of housing reconstruction units to displaced communities in post-conflict conditions. A comprehensive literature review was conducted on the planning process involved in post-conflict housing reconstruction projects. Based on a synthesis of the literature, a conceptual framework was developed that aims to promote effective stakeholder engagement during the planning stage of post-conflict housing reconstruction. A key feature of the conceptual framework is the establishment of an organisational management facilitator as an intermediary between project participants. This can assist in enhancing information transfer and stakeholder participation. To test and validate this conceptual framework, a qualitative approach was employed, and semi-structured interviews were undertaken with experts in planning post-conflict housing reconstruction. Thematic content analysis was then performed on the data leading to the refinement of the conceptual framework. The main contribution from this study is the development of a new approach to the planning of reconstruction projects that strengthens stakeholder engagement and collaboration. This seeks to address the limitations of current planning practices for post-conflict housing reconstruction. This new approach includes a realignment of the INGOs role to include responsibilities as the organisational management facilitators towards strengthening the engagement of, and collaboration between project participants. Additional measures to ensure compliance and evaluation of potential risks were also included with a clear focus on understanding local needs. This is also intended to empower the involvement of local community members. The resulting model was developed as a basis for strengthening stakeholder collaboration during the planning of post-conflict housing reconstruction and as a guide for practitioners
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