Palm Trees y Nopales: The Commodification and Hybridization of the South Texas Borderlands

This dissertation examines social inequalities rooted in capital. Through research conducted in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, this project interrogates how social characters use capital to access goods and services. By investigating seasonal migration of US and Canadian retirees into the region, the work highlights the social construction of retirement, the use of state and local governances to establish white only enclaves, and the nation-state’s role in creating marginalized populations in the Texas-Mexico borderlands. Ethnography is the primary research method with demographic and popular culture analysis as secondary modes of collecting data

Look Both Ways: Intersections Of Past And Present In The Shaping Of Relations Between Cyclists, Pedestrians, And Driverless Cars

Driverless cars are expected to transform society in many ways. Since nowadays most collisions are due to human error, safety is among the most anticipated benefits of the technology. The promise of near zero fatalities on roads appears in many industry statements and government reports. Because of that, every collision, especially involving fatalities, receives much attention from the media and public. That kind of scrutiny resembles the early days of the conventional automobiles. In those days, automobiles – also called “horseless carriages” – were not well received by the majority of the population. Cars brought conflicts and fatalities on roads to a level never seen before. The automobile industry, using public relations, shifted society’s perception about who belongs to the roads, and who should be blamed for the rise of fatalities. That shift influenced legislation and tort law in motor-vehicle centric ways. It also created cities with infrastructure focused on the automobile at the expense of other means of transportation. Today, one of the most difficult challenges for driverless cars is the unpredictability of pedestrian and cyclist behaviour. To accelerate the deployment of the technology, some are considering the necessity of law enforcement against pedestrians and other street users. Centred on urban environments, pedestrians and cyclists, and with an interdisciplinary and advocacy-oriented approach, this thesis seeks to contribute to the debate about the safety and deployment of driverless cars, its influence on law and legislation, and how a car-centred view of the technology may limit its potentialities

Promoting Bicycle Commuter Safety, Research Report 11-08

We present an overview of the risks associated with cycling to emphasize the need for safety. We focus on the application of frameworks from social psychology to education, one of the 5 Es—engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation. We use the structure of the 5 Es to organize information with particular attention to engineering and education in the literature review. Engineering is essential because the infrastructure is vital to protecting cyclists. Education is emphasized since the central focus of the report is safety

Telling the Story of Mexican Migration: Chronicle, Literature, and Film from the Post-Gatekeeper Period

This study examines how the social process of undocumented Mexican migration is interpreted in the chronicle, literature, and film of the post-Gatekeeper period, which is defined here at 1994-2008. Bounded on one side by the Mexican economic crisis of 1994, and increased border security measures begun in that same year, and on the other by the advent of the global economic crisis of 2008, the post-Gatkeeper period represents a time in which undocumented migration through the southern U.S. border reached unprecedented levels. The dramatic, tragic, and compelling stories that emerged from this period have been retold and interpreted from a variety of perspectives that have produced distinct, and often paradoxical, images of the figure of the undocumented migrant. Creative narrative responds to this critical point in the history of Mexican migration to the U.S.by applying the inherently subjective and mediated form of artistic interpretation to a social reality well documented by the media, historians, and social scientists. Throughout the chronicle, literature, and film of this period, migration is understood as a cultural tradition inspired by regional history. These stories place their undocumented protagonists on a narrative trajectory that transforms migration into a heroic quest for personal and community renewal. Such imagery positions the undocumented migrant as an active agent of change and provides discursive visibility to a figure often represented, in media and political rhetoric of the period, as an anonymous, collective Other. Filtered through this creative lens, migration is revealed as a complex social process in which individual experience is informed not only by personal ambition, but also by the expectations of the home community and its culture of migration. The creative works examined here foreground the history, motivation, and experience of their migrant protagonists in relation to the socio-historical context of this period. In doing so, they compose tales of migration in which the figure of the undocumented migrant plays a primary role, one informed not only by the experience of migration, but also by personal and community history

Potential Terrorist Uses of Highway-Borne Hazardous Materials, MTI Report 09-03

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has requested that the Mineta Transportation Institutes National Transportation Security Center of Excellence (MTI NTSCOE) provide any research it has or insights it can provide on the security risks created by the highway transportation of hazardous materials. This request was submitted to MTI/NSTC as a National Transportation Security Center of Excellence. In response, MTI/NTSC reviewed and revised research performed in 2007 and 2008 and assembled a small team of terrorism and emergency-response experts, led by Center Director Brian Michael Jenkins, to report on the risks of terrorists using highway shipments of flammable liquids (e.g., gasoline tankers) to cause casualties anywhere, and ways to reduce those risks. This report has been provided to DHS. The teams first focus was on surface transportation targets, including highway infrastructure, and also public transportation stations. As a full understanding of these materials, and their use against various targets became revealed, the team shifted with urgency to the far more plentiful targets outside of surface transportation where people gather and can be killed or injured. However, the team is concerned to return to the top of the use of these materials against public transit stations and recommends it as a separate subject for urgent research

Management of damage by elk (\u3ci\u3eCervus elaphus\u3c/i\u3e) in North America: a review

Abundant populations of elk (Cervus elaphus) are cherished game in many regions of the world and also cause considerable human–wildlife conflicts through depredation on agriculture and specialty crops, lack of regeneration to native ecosystems, collisions with vehicles and transmission of disease between free-ranging and farmed hoofstock. Management of elk varies, depending on current and historical agency objectives, configuration of the landscapes elk occupy, public perception, population density and behaviour of elk. Selection of the method to manage elk often requires knowledge of timing of impacts, duration relief from elk damage is desired, cost-effectiveness of management activities, tolerance of impacts, public perception of management strategies and motivation or habituation of elk to determine the likelihood of success for a proposed management action. We reviewed methods that are available to control abundant populations of elk that include lethal (e.g. hunting, sharpshooting) and non-lethal (e.g. fertility control, frightening) options. We promote an integrated approach that incorporates the timely use of a variety of cost-effective methods to reduce impacts to tolerable levels. Lethal options that include regulated hunting, sharpshooting and aerial gunning vary by likelihood of success, duration needed for population reduction, cost to implement reduction and public perceptions. Several non-lethal options are available to affect population dynamics directly (e.g. fertility control, translocation), protect resources from damage (e.g. fences, repellents) or influence space use of elk on a regular basis (e.g. harassment, frightening, herding dogs, humans). Public perception should be considered by agencies that are looking for feasible methods to control populations of elk. Disturbance to residents or visitors of public property may influence methods of management employed. Future research should explore the duration of harassment needed to avert elk from sensitive areas and costs to implement such programs. Several methods in our review were implemented on deer and additional research on elk and other cervids in conflict with human interests would provide a much needed component to our understanding of management methods available for ungulate species

Exploiting weaknesses: an approach to counter cartel strategy

The thesis, "Exploiting Weaknesses: An Approach to Counter Cartel Strategy," provided an in-depth case study analysis of Los Zetas transnational criminal network to gain an understanding on its weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The thesis utilized social movement theory to illuminate its mobilizing structure and key essential factors that make Los Zetas vulnerable to disruption. In addition, the study identified Los Zetas' financial support structure to expose its insidious methods. Finally, the thesis utilized social network analysis and geographical information systems to gain an understanding of its organizational networks, deduce possible safe havens, and key terrain of Los Zetas. Ultimately, the employment of the aforementioned theories revealed essential vulnerabilities, which form the essence of a practical disruption policy recommendation against Los Zetas.http://archive.org/details/exploitingweakne1094510682US Army (USA) author

Memorial landscapes: a phenomenology of grief

Roadside memorials are rebel spaces situated outside normative locations for sites of commemoration. The lived experience of grief opens the gaze of the inquirer toward the poesis of death and traces of sorrow found in the most ordinary of landscapes. A place that initially appears commonplace becomes, under a phenomenological gaze, a location that provides revelatory insights into the relationship between people and landscape. Grounded in the existential phenomenological methodology of Max van Manen (1990), themes emerging from this inquiry into the relationship between grief, death, and landscape align with existential lifeworld themes of spatiality, corporeality, temporality, and relationality. These in turn evolve into a series of experiential strategies of utility to landscape architects interested in expressing the lived experience of grief, death, and landscape in commemorative sites. The experience of reenchantment is advanced as an overarching theme within the inquiry. In the first instance, reenchantment is directed towards the restoration of the lived world following the experience of traumatic death. Reenchantment is also directed towards the development of an expanded field of knowledge that acknowledges the importance of experience in designing memorial landscapes. Finally, reenchantment refers to the reciprocal relationship between people and landscape. Grief brings attention to the redemptive capacity of landscape in the wake of tragic death. Memorial landscapes demonstrate extensive phenomenological breadth -- existing as physical region, an imaginary space of depth and darkness, and a cosmological location of lightness and unification. This spatial complexity allows the commemorative site to host fluctuating conditions within the lifeworld of the bereaved and to provide potentially significant experiences for casual visitors to a given site. Mind, body, and spirit are invited to enter into a state of intertwining -- ecstatic, redemptive, or otherwise -- within the reenchanted memorial landscape