Multiple narratives about the past are created over time, with some surviving into the twenty-first century and some forgotten or ignored. Deerfield, Massachusetts, is a place where many such histories have been constructed, in large part based on evidence gleaned from a rich array of material culture, ranging from the carefully preserved and interpreted architecture of a house museum of Historic Deerfield, Inc., to an overlooked vest button buried deep in its dooryard. The village has long been a place where inhabitants have much concerned themselves with writing historical stories and curating objects from the past, particularly the late seventeenth and eighteenth century colonial period. Until recently, not as much has been recovered, however, of the narrative about and by the women who, over a century later, helped initiate a vital enterprise—an arts and crafts revival—that set the stage for a stable village economy based, even today, in local cultural and educational institutions. In addition, these women were among the first to restore and renovate houses here and create a house museum for the public. Accordingly, the early growth of several important historical trends can be traced here, including the historic preservation movement and heritage tourism. Further, this dissertation explores insights into how and why the history of the lives and work of these important women has, at various times, become obscured. Artifacts available to help re-create this marginalized history abound. They include not only decorative objects such as embroidered pieces done by women of the Blue and White Society and metalwork by artist Madeline Yale Wynne, but also the latter's broken ceramics, a chance subterranean find, as well as evocative professional photographs by Deerfield sisters Mary and Frances Allen. This dissertation is a study of the materiality, an anthropological archaeology, of several key Deerfield women and their activities at the turn of the last century. It provides entry into and a more nuanced understanding of a gendered world that provided not only important foundations for local economies, but also wider practices of the Colonial Revival, Arts and Crafts, and historic preservation movements.

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The utilization and management of blood is an imperative undertaking when considering the cost, risk and limited resources involved. Mountain States Health Alliance, with the guidance and dedication from Dr. Andrew Fletcher and his team, were able to sustain a 20% reduction in blood utilization overall since the inception of the project to present. Mountain States was also able to save approximately $250,000 over a one-year period due to the change in policy and procedure of ordering blood as well as the close and thoughtful monitoring of the entire health system’s blood usage. This change in policy not only produced monetary and resource savings, it also reduced the risk of adverse transfusion reactions and created a more patient-centered approach to supplying and ordering blood for the patients of the health system. As the health care system as a whole is continuously struggling to keep up with demands for more efficient use of resources, this model can be and has been adapted to other resources such as pharmacy and radiology, and will continue to be useful in effecting efficiency across healthcare facilities.

This research examines historic preservation, sustainability, and environmental hazards in the face of climate change in reference to World Heritage Sites; particularly focusing on the question: Can UNESCO World Heritage Sites be conserved and protected in the face of climate change and environmental hazards? There are 1,121 World Heritage Sites listed by UNESCO and are categorized as cultural, natural, or a mix of both. The majority of these sites are at risk from different environmental hazards that could threaten their existence or long-term survival; however, policy initiatives can mitigate some of these impacts. It was discovered that every continental region, with the exception of Oceania, had a site considered to be the most vulnerable. There were 27 sites deemed most vulnerable, only 2.4% of the World Heritage Sites. Most of these sites were located along the Pacific Coasts of Asia, and both North and South America. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / For generations, participation has been a mainstay of academic writing and teaching. By the 1970's, the policy statements of the major international donors and implementing agencies all emphasize the importance of participation (Dudley, 1993). It is time to stop simply reiterating the cry for community participation and prolonged argument about definitions of participation - related concepts. That was yesterday's battle. Certainly, despite all the rhetoric, participation often does not happen.

La Mancha Plain lies in the core of Spain and partially stretches over the Guadiana River Upper Basin (UGB), is one of the most arid regions of the Iberian Peninsula, indeed “La Mancha” in Arabic means “the dry”, and also houses a vast Aquifer that has supported the related numerous marshlands and hydro-ecosystems in harmony with the human development till the 1970s, when the “Agrarian Green Revolution” commenced. Land reclamation over River and lagoon beds joined to the irrigation implementation of more than 150.000 Ha have badly bled the water resources to the maximum usable limit, lowering the phreatic table down to 60 meters, provoking a serious ecological damage for the 25.000 Ha of wetlands highly dependent on shallow phreatic levels. Recently, Nature granted the wettest period ever registered in the area (2009-2012) which caused an incredible natural replenishment of that Aquifer deficit. However, even though several costly plans and policies have been undertaken, it is still pending to effectively control the extractions, to manage the Aquifer within a portion allowing a certain continuous upwelling to enliven the Guadiana River real spring, and also, to adjust the essential agriculture sector to the environmental conditions and carrying capacity of the system.

Groundwater is used worldwide as a major source for agricultural irrigation, industrial processes, mining, and drinking water. An accurate understanding of groundwater levels and trends is essential for decision makers to effectively manage groundwater resources throughout an aquifer, ensuring its sustainable development and usage. Unfortunately, groundwater is one of the most challenging and expensive water resources to characterize, quantify, and monitor on a regional basis. Data, though present, are often limited or sporadic, and are generally not used to their full potential to aid decision makers in their groundwater management.This thesis presents a solution to this under-utilization of available data through the creation of an open-source, Python-based web application used to characterize, visualize, and quantify groundwater resources on a regional basis. This application includes tools to extrapolate and interpolate time series observations of groundwater levels in monitoring wells through multi-linear regression, using correlated data from other wells. It is also possible to extrapolate time series observations using machine learning techniques with Earth observations as inputs. The app also performs spatial interpolation using GSLIB Kriging code. Combining the results of spatial and temporal interpolation, the app enables the user to calculate changes in aquifer storage, and to produce and view aquifer-wide maps and animations of groundwater levels over time. This tool will provide decision makers with an easy to use and easy to understand method for tracking groundwater resources. Thus far, this tool has been used to map groundwater in Texas, Utah, South Africa, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.

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