Habitat Suitability Assessment for Urban Beavers in Metro Atlanta, GA, and Charlotte, NC

Degradation in urban streams results from expansive impervious surface cover channeling stormflow directly to streams, lessening water storage ability. To slow velocity and decrease peak flow in urban watersheds, stormwater management ponds can be effective in alleviating the impact of flooding but require resources for establishment and maintenance. Urban beaver ponds also effectively store large quantities of water, while offering ecological and geomorphic benefits. Conflicts between beavers and humans arise when dams cause localized flooding and unexpected landscape changes. Lessening conflict requires a spatial understanding of habitat suitability, which this study attempted by modelling key habitat characteristics using GIS. I found that employing input parameters typical of models built for forested catchments resulted in outputs not specific enough to highlight beaver-preferred landscape in an urban setting. After adjusting inputs to reflect patterns at urban beaver sites, the output was better at emphasizing beaver locations

English language in rural Malaysia: situating global literacies in local practices

This paper claims that underlying the naturalisation of teaching and learning of English in the Malaysian education system are ideological pressures and political dogmas, often emerging from colonial, urban/rural and even local ethnic conflicts and hierarchies. It suggests therein lie the inherent difficulties of teaching and learning English in rural communities in Malaysia. Three paradigms frame this view in the paper: the overarching view of literacy as a situated and variable social process; the use of an ethnographic perspective in investigating English language and literacy education in Malaysia; the stance on the need for Malaysians to acquire English as an additive rather than as a deficit philosophy

CHARACTERIZING THE STREAM ENVIRONMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH INTRODUCED SPECIES ACROSS SPATIAL SCALES IN HAWAI‘I

M.S. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Talking points: Colorado and Africa

Discussion of relationship between Colorado and Africa

The Political Economy of Cable - "Open Access."

Advocates of "open access" claim that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should be able to use a cable TV system's bandwidth on the same terms offered to ISPs owned by the cable system. On that view, "open access" mitigates a monopoly bottleneck and encourages the growth of broadband. This paper shows that cable operators do enjoy market power, and do seek to leverage a dominant position in video into the broadband access market by allocating too little bandwidth for Internet access. Yet, rather than protect cable operators from cannibalizing their cable TV revenue, this strategy defends against imposition of common carrier regulation, which would allow system capacity to be appropriated by regulators and rival broadband networks. Ironically, the push for "open access" limits Internet access by encouraging this under-allocation of broadband spectrum, and by introducing coordination problems slowing technology deployment. These effects are empirically evident in the competitive superiority of cable's "closed" platform vis-a-vis "open" DSL networks, and in financial market reactions to key regulatory events and mergers in broadband.