Assessing ancestry from skeletal remains provides important information to aid in personal identification. However, trying to specify ancestry for Native American and Asian populations in the United States is a current challenge in laboratory analyses. Both Native American and Asian populations are still often combined in research for a variety of reasons: small sample sizes, skeletal similarities and less emphasis in contemporary literature. Historically, Carlton Coon, in 1939, and Riesenfield, in 1956, refer to this combination of both Native American and Asian populations as Mongoloid, a term which is deemed by many as an offensive and inaccurate categorization of both populations by modern standards. The intent of this research is to analyze non-metric features of Native American and Asian crania to determine which traits, if any, may be used to differentiate between those two populations. Data analysis using frequency tables, chi-square and logistic regression methods show that some traits are statistically significant and are, therefore, linked to one population. By using these traits to help differentiate between Native American and Asian crania, ancestry may be identified more easily in forensic casework.

Tornadoes are a reoccurring severe weather hazard, with the highest rates globally occurring in the central United States. Despite their high frequency in the U.S., the scientific communitys disagreement of tornado activity during varying phases and intensities of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) justifies a need for further research. In this study, tornado events from 1950 to 2014 in the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains were investigated for seven phases of ENSO: strong, moderate, and weak El Niño/La Niña and the neutral phase. A seasonal Niño 3.4 index was used as the definition of ENSO. ENSO influences on tornado frequency, intensity, geographical distribution, and track area were tested using sophisticated mapping (i.e. GIS optimized hot spot analysis) and spatial statistics (i.e. average nearest neighbor and global Morans I). Results indicate that in spring, a Weak La Niña correlates with higher tornado intensity and stronger, long-lived tornadoes that shift eastward from the central U.S. as ENSO transitions from El Niño to La Niña. Summer has high tornado frequencies that do not vary dramatically across ENSO phases, with weak, short-lived tornadoes occurring in tornado outbreaks. Fall has similar tornado frequencies across six of the seven ENSO phases, apart from largely higher annual counts during a Strong La Niña phase. Winter exhibits more tornadoes that are stronger and longer-lived during a Moderate La Niña phase, with a northward expansion in tornado hot spots as ENSO transitions from El Niño to La Niña. In general, La Niña is most conducive for higher tornado counts and stronger, longer lived tornadoes.

Many hazard threats challenge the uninterrupted operation of the maritime transportation system across multiple temporal and spatial scales. Environmental hazard threats include hurricanes, storm surge, and sea-level rise. Resilience begins at the port, which provides the physical, economic, and social connection between sea and land transportation users. Ports function through port authorities, composed of people with decision-making abilities, which causes port resilience to be a complex process to understand. The paucity of metrics to quantify port resilience warrants other methods to study this place-specific topic. The goal of the Ports Resilience Index (PRI) project centered on the development of a qualitative resilience self-assessment tool for port authorities, using input of port practitioners. Using a participatory approach, I facilitated three rounds of expert consultation with forty-nine port practitioners across the Gulf of Mexico coast to develop the PRI. One round included pilot-testing the PRI with three port authorities. This dissertation uses qualitative methods of historical and comparative case study analyses, thematic coding of written hurricane plans, focus group discussion analyses, and participant evaluations to analyze the effectiveness of a participatory approach in engaging port stakeholders. The method to develop and complete the PRI might build capacity for resilience in port communities. Social interactions among port practitioners provided a look at the process of resilience that goes deeper than written hurricane plans but also identified challenges to resilience, including an emphasis on reactive, business-driven planning. Discussion facilitated by the PRI enhances anticipation by revealing collective perceptions of environmental risks and creating a non-competitive space to discuss risks. Completing the tool fosters on-going resilience through identification of opportunities to implement feasible resilient practices, including communication strategies and agency partnerships. The discussion-based assessment method of the PRI provides a connection between what researchers know about resilience and how we know it. A geographers perspective provides a solid foundation to study and understand the process of resilience at the human-environment interface. Resilient adaptability of ports to other hazards depends on flexibility in decision-making, which can be strengthened through participatory and place-based methods.

Wavelet analysis is an efficient approach to studying textural patterns at different scales. Artificial neural networks can learn very complex patterns in the data and could be an efficient classifier. However, whether wavelet analysis, in combination with artificial neural networks or other classifiers, can be used to detect the social-economic conditions of urban neighborhood is a key research question that needs further study. The hypotheses of this study were: 1) neural networks yielded higher classification accuracy than linear discriminant analysis and the minimum-distance classifier based on wavelet measures of urban land covers; 2) wavelet textural measures could be used to efficiently discriminate among urban neighborhoods of different social-economic conditions; 3) image resolution had great influences on the discrimination of urban neighborhoods; and 4) window size had great influences on the discrimination of urban neighborhoods. In addition, two technical problems related to the application of textural approach, including the edge effect and image segmentation problem, were examined. The results show that the new approach developed to reducing edge effects consistently achieved higher accuracy than the traditional moving-window approach. The post-segmentation integration scheme in the region-based splitting-and-merging segmentation procedures reflected all the segmented clusters identified by two or more textural measures and was helpful in identifying homogeneous regions in an image. Regarding the four hypotheses, (1) The minimum-distance classifier performed the worst. Neural networks were found to generally yield slightly better results than discriminant analysis but the difference was not statistically significant. The first hypothesis was shown to be invalid. (2) With a window size of 85m by 85m, an overall accuracy of 93.00% was achieved using band 2 and an overall accuracy of 96.83% was achieved using combination of band 2 and band 3. (3) The 1-foot resolution subsets were found to yield higher classification accuracy than the 0.9m resolution subsets and the 2.7m resolution subsets for band 2 and band 3 for the six neighborhoods in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The differences were generally over 5%. (4) Window size was found to have great influences on the discrimination of urban neighborhoods. The larger the window size, the higher the classification accuracy.

Because homicides are rare events, criminologists must often deal with the Small Population Problem, which creates unreliable homicide rates based on arbitrarily delineated census tracts of low population. These rates lead to violations in several assumptions required in statistical analysis. This study proposes the Regionally Constrained Agglomerative Clustering and Partitioning (REDCAP) method to mitigate the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem and solve the Small Population Problem by constructing new, larger regions with sufficient minimum populations for homicide rate calculation. This method is used for a case study of New Orleans, Louisiana, to test the relationship between concentrated disadvantage and homicide. Ordinary Least Squares and Geographically Weighted Regressions are conducted with the data both before and after the REDCAP operation. Results for the standard census tract layer show a weak and insignificant relationship between concentrated disadvantage and homicide because of extremely unreliable rate estimates. After the REDCAP operation, variables show a more normal distribution and reduced variability; moreover, regression results confirm a strong and positive relationship between concentrated disadvantage and homicide. This study shows viability for REDCAP as a regionalization method for further studies on violent crime, namely its ability to provide more stable data for improved reliability in crime rate calculations. Additionally, this study provides implications for public policy, specifically social cohesion and efficacy policies, including community-oriented policing.

This study assesses sexual dimorphism of the skull in samples of African-Americans (AA) and European-Americans (EA). Morphology of the cranium is classically referenced as an indicator of sexual dimorphism in the fields of bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. Variation in size and shape of cranial elements has been found to differ significantly between ancestral populations. Abundant research suggests that patterns of sexual dimorphism also vary between ancestries. This study uses a sample of 55 AA females, 50 AA males, 49 EA females, and 49 EA males from the Hamann-Todd Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the WM Bass Donated Collection at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Twenty linear measurements were taken on the cranium and mandible, and 19 variables were analyzed. MANOVA determined that four variables (i.e. maximum cranial length, maximum cranial height, cranial base length and mandibular angle) have significant interaction between sex and ancestry, thereby, corroborating the evidence that there is ancestral variation in sexual dimorphism. The results of this study have implications for understanding evolution among anatomically modern humans after having migrated out of Africa. Additionally, the knowledge gained from this study further assists forensic anthropologists and bioarchaeologists in reconstructing biological profiles of individuals and pre-historical populations by providing a detailed description of the variation in sexual dimorphism between African-Americans and European-Americans.

ABSTRACT Quemoy is a small island with an area of fifty-eight square miles at the mouth of Xiamen Bay on the southeast coast of China. As a Cold-War front of Taiwan shelled by the Chinese artillery for twenty years, Quemoy is becoming a heritage tourism destination attracting mainland Chinese to sightsee in its military structures. In this study, I examine landscape change in the post-conflict society through the interplay of three social dynamicsreconciliation, demilitarization, and touristificationexploring the cultural mechanism of landscape change and its meaning. Through a review of Quemoys history, I identify Quemoys geographical characteristicsmarginality, cultural hybridity, and islandnessformed and articulated in a repetitive process that I term as the reversal of geographical coordinate system. The reversal coincides with a change of social concerns in the marginal society, whose negotiations with terrestrial and maritime powers direct its engaging front toward the land or the sea, and stimulates distinct human inscriptions in the landscape. Militarization of Quemoy as Chinese Nationalists Cold-War front initiated the last reversal, which turned its front toward the mainland China in 1949 and brought forth a military landscape characterized by its rigidity, hierarchy, and pragmatism. Simultaneously, the militarization incurred biopolitical production through militia duty, everyday regulation, combat economy, and battlefield knowledge. As the 1949-reversal is now dissolving under current demilitarization, from reinvention and destruction of military structures I reveal irony in the landscape as a way of cultural demilitarization subverting the significance of the past anticommunist conflicts. Furthermore, by reconstruction of historical landscapes and reinterpretation of symbolic landscapes, Quemoyans (re)localize landscape and jointly engage in a process of homeland construction. The juxtaposition of historical simulacra and reinvented military relics produces heterotopias of a museum island for heritage tourism. Consequently, the production of irony and heterotopias together serves as the cultural mechanism of the current identity reformulation from a battlefield to a heritage tourism destination. Uncovering the mechanism, I then demonstrate that ambiguity and multiculturality emerging from this ironys multivocality and heterotopias multilocality is a cultural strategy of the border island society to negotiate with the post-conflict situation.

For over 1.9 million indigenous people in the United States, speaking their native language has become a rare opportunity. There are several obstacles standing in their way, from geographically separated communities to hundreds of years of contrarian policies and sometimes a collective lack of interest. Today, indigenous language use has become an integral part of self-determination and political sovereignty, sometimes more so than a communicative activity. This dissertation examines the political steps taken by American Indian communities around the United States to ensure that their languages can still be spoken into the twenty-first century, and analyzes the complex implications of enacting language policy as a political minority. Using a critical framework inspired by Michel Foucault, I establish theoretical bridges between geography, anthropology and linguistics as a basis for the study of language practices. In combination with the geographical concept of site, I aver that language planning serves to build spaces where indigenous populations are able to express their own sense of community and develop their own cultures. The particular legal and political history of American Indians situates them both inside and outside of the mainstream United States population. As a result they have developed a parallel political existence rooted in their intrinsic sovereignty rather than the amount of power delegated to them by the federal government. I argue that although policy seems to be enacted in their favor, American Indians are still facing outdated modes of thinking and suffering from a lack of comprehensive understanding. From a series of interviews with administrators of language programs throughout the United States, I found that the most efficient ways for them to cultivate positive change in their communities and languages is to proceed with their own solutions regardless of the existing legislation. Functioning upon the premise that complexity is a defining element of both language and space, I suggest that ontological approaches provide the most productive approach to studying linguistics and geography, as they rely on practice rather than political paradigms. The concept of site gives way to a more respectful and impactful study of the human aspects of geographic phenomena.

The Andes is one of many regions thought to have developed as a pristine hydraulic state; thus the region serves as a testing ground for theories on the development of irrigation. Since Wittfogel (1957) proposed a correlation between irrigation and the development of pristine states, the relationships between social organization, political power, and coordinated subsistence strategies have been hotly debated. This research will examine the role of irrigation in the transition to early urban settlements in the Nepeña Valley, on the north-central coast of Peru. I especially focus on the nature of political structure and social organization, examining the validity of Wittfogelian hierarchical models as they pertain to irrigation systems and settlement pattern shifts that coincide with changing subsistence strategies. In order to examine shifts in patterns of subsistence and settlement, potential canals are identified for each time period based on site location as well as degrees of social complexity and political authority as indicated by architectural analysis. Influence areas for each major site are also determined from surface data. From architectural density, population estimates are calculated, which allows for an estimation of the areal extent necessary to support the settlements and validity of previously established carrying capacity. Ultimately, it becomes apparent that irrigation strategies were present as early as the Initial Period (1800-900 BC) and firmly established by the Early Horizon (900-200 BC). Irrigation and spatial evidence suggests gradual, in-situ, intensification of irrigation systems, which highlights the intimate relationships between subsistence strategy and social complexity. This development reflects political organization characterized by heterarchy and brings into question dogmatic hierarchical models of social organization.

This dissertation is an investigation of the initiation of motion in aeolian sediment transport. The chapters within address transport thresholds for dry sands and spatiotemporal variability of surface moisture on natural beaches, both critical concerns for the study of aeolian processes. Results indicate a new model of transport threshold conditions provides substantial improvement in predictive capability. Field measurements closely match model predictions. In addition, results indicate that small scale variability and near surface gradients of surficial moisture are important components to aeolian systems. New techniques for measuring beach surface moisture provide improved accuracy over previous approaches.