“Penniless and Unknown”: Temporality of the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery - A GIS Analysis

This thesis uses GIS modeling techniques of spatial data, archaeological data, and historical documentation to determine patterning of material culture associated with interments at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC), an unmarked cemetery located in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Archaeological excavations at the MCPFC in 1991-1992 and again in 2013 recovered over 2,400 individuals associated with Milwaukee County’s practice of providing burial for institutional residents, unidentified or unclaimed individuals sent from the Coroner’s Office, the remains of cadaverized individuals, and community poor from 1862 through 1925 (Richards 2016). Previous research identified two distinct material culture classes; grave goods and grave inclusions. These two broad categories support the interpretation of four potential burial classes (Richards 2016:100). While these artifact associations adequately examine the relationship between material culture and respective burial class, it does not necessarily represent a broad temporal patterning of material culture within a spatial context. This thesis utilizes spatial analyses to identify and examine the distribution of temporality in order to provide a more accurate and complete spatial understanding of the history and land use at the MCPFC. Spatial patterns in the distribution of temporally diagnostic material culture such as coins, footwear, jars or containers, and positively identified individuals are used to refine temporally significant burial clusters across the cemetery. The results of this study refine the current assumptions of land use patterns based on coffin handle distributions and confirm the larger spatial patterning of temporality across the cemetery. This thesis also provides a GIS model and external database designed to facilitate future research of the MCPFC

Effects of social experience on the behaviour of male guinea pigs and rats

Most animals have some social experience, and in non-solitary species social experiences may be frequent and various. Evolutionary theory predicts this experience should lead to changes in behaviour which maximise inclusive fitness. However, the effects of such experience on subsequent behaviour are largely unknown. Investigation of the effects of social experience on behaviour requires examination of the nature, causes and functions of social behaviour and organisation under natural and experimental conditions. In a semi-natural colony of guinea pigs, a male dominance hierarchy was found. Comparison of dominance status with social behaviour suggested that agonistic experience determined subsequent agonism and (to a lesser extent) courtship. Both sexes apparently responded to males according to physical and behavioural cues indicative of resource holding power (Parker, 1974). Early experience has often been studied in attempts to find critical periods for socialization. Isolation of rats during the post-weaning period of social play has long-term effects on some non-social and agonistic behaviours (Einon et al, 1981; Wahlstrand et al, 1983). Early isolation of non-playing rodents (including guinea pigs) has no long-term effects on non-social behaviour (Einon et al, 1981). This suggests that social play might be important in the socialisation of playing species. The effects of both isolation and experience of females on male rat behaviour was examined. Early-isolated rats showed abnormalities in intra-group social behaviour, but no increase in aggressiveness. No group studied had a consistent social organisation. Parallel experiments with guinea pigs showed increased intra-group aggressive intensity, but no other differences in social behaviour or organisation. Prolonged grouping increased individual differences in aggressiveness under all conditions, but dominance hierarchies were only formed when females were present. Reduced courtship by subordinates was apparently due to both direct and indirect effects of agonistic experience. These findings are discussed in terms both of the causes and functions of behaviour, and of the social ecologies of the two species

Rodent Biology and Management; Abstracts of papers presented at the International Conference on Rodent Biology and Management, held at Beijing, China, 5-9 October 1998

Farm Management,

Spectrum 1993

https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/undergraduate-spectrum/1023/thumbnail.jp

The Expression of Gender in Synthetic Actors: Modeling and Motion Control Over Invariant Perceptual Cues Leading to Gender Recognition

A perception based strategy for communicating the gender of computer animated characters is evaluated. Motivated by the idea that effective character animation involves the expression of character traits through motion, this study builds upon previous work in the areas of computer animation and ecological psychology in an effort to more fully characterize the dynamic information which leads to the perception of gender. Information specifying the masculinity or femininity of a walking figure is considered in relation to the range across which the indexes may be exaggerated and applied to objects not normally considered male or female

Assessing animal welfare in a captive primate: an analysis of stress related behaviour in Mandrillus sphinx

The study of stress in captive animals maintained in zoos allows to consider elements that play a main role for the welfare of these species. Among these elements there are the zoo visitors, recently found in the scientific literature as negatively influencing the animals especially when these are primates. At Chester Zoo (UK), a group of six mandrills was investigated after having shown signs of stereotypical behaviour comprised of hair plucking. Through the application of ethology, notably the procedure of all-animal scan sampling, a series of variables was collected. From the data it was tested whether the public's density and the noise produced were responsible for the occurrence of visitor-directed aggression and stereotypies. These data were statistically analysed through mixed effects linear models. This statistical treatment provides a powerful way of testing of data with a degree of interdependency (such as scan samples of a particular individual). Such data are often yielded in studies with low numbers of individuals, as is often the case under captive conditions. The results collected from the zoo visitors found that they used to stay for longer in proximity of the enclosure producing a louder noise when the animals were found in the in-door enclosure and in proximity of the glass window dividing the public. The analysis of the animal behaviour showed that a correlation exists between the visitors’ density and noise and the occurrence of aggressive related displays towards the public by the animals. The visitors' density was also found to be responsible for the higher occurrence of stereotypical bouts of hair plucking. It was hypothesised that the latter was an indirect relationship and resulted from the fact that aggressive behaviours towards visitors did not have the effect anticipated by the mandrills leading to frustration and subsequent hair plucking

Local Perceptions and Responses to Risk: A Study of a Cambodian Village

This dissertation focuses on the ways Khmer peasants living in a landmine-affected community build their survival strategy in the face of dangers and uncertainties that may physically, economically and socially impair their lives. Rural families living in post-conflict areas face a wide range of risks that encompass but are by no means limited to anti-personnel landmines. Western frames of analysis have assumed that peasants are essentially risk averse. This paper argues that in a situation where families lack livelihood alternatives, it is by confronting risk that they protect themselves. This dissertation argues that distinctions between apparently risk prone and risk averse behaviour are inadequate especially when the professional removal of landmines is followed by local initiatives to put them back. Indeed such simple distinction fails to take account of the intricate linkages between time, local history, social organisation, political system, religious beliefs and human instinct for survival. This dissertation seeks to provide new insights into risk perceptions by drawing on ethnographic research into the knowledge, attitudes and practices of Khmer peasants. It is divided into three main chapters. The first chapter gauges and analyses the local exposure to vulnerability and discusses the array of risks the ordinary household faces on an everyday basis. The second chapter deconstructs the Euro-American definition of risk in light of local perceptions, understandings and risk-related discourse. The last chapter investigates peasants\u27 pragmatic responses to risk and the ways local resilience, inventiveness and self-reliance form the basis of their survival strategy, hence crafting their own concept of risk subsistence