One of the most understudied frontiers, the Kentucky frontier was also one of the most violent. For twenty years this region was affected by a bloody war that came to involve the new settler population, numerous Indian tribes, the British, and the American government. More than a border war, the battle for Kentucky and the trans-Appalachian west came to define the communities which grew up in its midst, altering world views, attitudes, and compounding prejudices. It is the purpose of this thesis to accomplish two goals: first, this work will tackle the lack of recent scholarship on this region by providing a detailed history of the Kentucky frontier during the American Revolution and its subsequent period. The second goal of this thesis is to study, analyse and understand how the violence generated by the war with the Indians helped to shape settler society. By thinking of violence not purely as the result of other, more potent social forces – racism, economic fears, competition for land – it is possible to study and understand its formative impact upon early American society. From the short term development of vendetta fuelled warfare to the long term impact this war had upon relations between white and Native America, the war for the trans-Appalachian west saw violence taking on a particularly important, particularly formative role.

Spurred by Richard Louv’s bestseller Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit-Disorder (2005), a popular movement composed of parents, educators, and researchers has increasingly called for the reconnection of children and the natural environment. This thesis interrogates the cultural assumptions at work in this call to reconnect, specifically how an American frontier imagination structures Louv’s ideal form of connection. Drawing on scholarship from the fields of ecocriticism, environmental history, and American studies I assess the implications of Louv’s frontier framing for the project of reconnecting children to nature and for the broader field of environmental education. I argue that a frontier vision of connection with nature is at times exclusionary and escapist, and more troubling, has the potential to enforce social hierarchies invested in whiteness and the U.S. settler state. / 2020-01-11

A pesquisa aqui desenvolvida visou elucidar os nexos que definem a produção do espaço da metrópole de Porto Alegre no período atual, sobretudo nos últimos 15 anos. O trabalho inicialmente estabelece os fundamentos teóricos para compreender o movimento que transforma o espaço urbano em mercadoria, para em seguida identificar como esse processo se desenvolve, em Porto Alegre, definindo centralidades de valorização no espaço urbano, para cuja efetivação as estratégias das empresas do setor imobiliário são primordiais. Com isso em vista, o trabalho utilizou o conceito de fronteira urbana para aprimorar o entendimento das estratégias de valorização do espaço, verificando como esse processo se consumou no empreendimento Jardim Europa, localizado no setor leste da cidade de Porto Alegre. Colocou-se em evidência o fato de que as empresas do setor imobiliário esforçam-se constantemente por integrar áreas menos valorizadas à esfera de circulação de seu capital, com o intuito de obter sobrelucros de incorporação. Para atrair segmentos das classes média e alta para áreas menos valorizadas da cidade, as empresas lançam mão de publicidade maciça, vendendo signos do bem-estar e da harmonia com a natureza, bem como procuram apoiar-se no Estado, que frequentemente respalda suas iniciativas. O resultado é a permanente remodelação do espaço urbano sob a égide da acumulação de capital, o que conduz à reiteração das distâncias sociais e espaciais entre os centros valorizados e as vastas periferias urbanas características do capitalismo brasileiro. / The current research attempted to reveal the central aspects of the production of the metropolitan space of Porto Alegre during the last 15 years. First of all, we established the theoretical framework which helped us understand the movement that transforms space into a commodity. This has allowed us to demonstrate how this transformation has been occurring in Porto Alegre and how it has given rise to new spatial centralities in terms of real estate development. This is a process largely carried out by business strategies devised by large real estate developers. Having this in view, we made use of the concept of urban frontier in order to enrich our understanding of the business strategies of real estate development, paying attention to the changes occurred with Jardim Europa, a large development project located in the Eastern part of Porto Alegre. We emphasized the fact that large developers strive to incorporate areas of lower land prices into the sphere of circulation of their capital with the aim of obtaining surplus development profits. So as to attract middle and upper class households to these frontiers, developers employ massive advertising campaigns, selling signs of welfare and of harmony with nature, at the same time as they rely on the local state, which usually supports their development schemes. The result of this is the restless refashioning of urban space carried out by capital accumulation, thus leading to the reinforcement of the social and spatial distances that separate the gentrified neighborhoods and the vast urban peripheries typical of capitalism as it has developed in Brazil.

O estudo apresenta uma análise dos principais determinantes da eficiência técnica das escolas do ensino básico brasileiras. Por se tratar de uma amostra de escolas do Saeb (Sistema de Avaliação do Ensino Brasileiro) para os anos de 1999, 2001 e 2003, optou-se por utilizar um método conhecido como fronteira estocástica. Todos os exercícios foram realizados com as instituições da quarta e oitava séries do ensino fundamental e terceira série do ensino médio, dando ênfase para a quarta série do ensino fundamental em duas disciplinas, Matemática e Português. Dois modelos foram aplicados, sendo que um deles inclui variáveis ambientais como regressores da fronteira estocástica (Modelo A), enquanto o outro especifica a ineficiência técnica como dependente dessas variáveis ambientais (Modelo B). Ambos os modelos mostraram que a eficiência técnica depende positivamente da escolaridade da mãe e do fato do aluno ser branco e negativamente com a proporção de alunos reprovados. Contudo, os dois modelos produziram estimativas de ineficiência técnica distintas, diferenciando-se em termos de média e de densidade. De forma geral, foi possível identificar ineficiência técnica média menor do que 5%. Ademais, foi possível verificar uma correlação positiva entre desempenho escolar e ineficiência técnica das escolas brasileiras. Dada a disponibilidade de um painel de escolas para os anos de análise, num segundo momento, foram realizados alguns exercícios comparativos com os resultados gerados pela amostra total do SAEB e com os resultados do painel de escolas. Um deles, se fez com a estimação da fronteira de produção propriamente dita, comparando-se os coeficientes e a significância das variáveis. O outro levou em conta o ranking de ineficiência gerado pela regressão. Os resultados comparativos sugerem que o painel de escolas não é por si só suficiente para explicar toda amostra de escolas pesquisadas pelo Saeb, mesmo que apresentem similaridades. / This study presents an analysis of the main determinants of technical efficiency of primary and secondary schools in Brazil. Since we used a sample of schools from the database Saeb (Assessment System for Brazilian Education) for the years 1999, 2001 and 2003, we chose to use a method known as stochastic frontier. All exercises were performed in the institutions of the fourth and eighth grades of elementary school and third grade of secondary education, with emphasis on the fourth grade of primary education in two disciplines, Mathematics and Portuguese. Two models were applied, one of which includes environmental variables as regressors of the stochastic frontier (Model A), while the other specifies the technical inefficiency as dependent on these environmental variables (Model B). Both models showed that the technical efficiency positively depends on the mothers education and the fact that the student is white and depends negatively of the proportion of students who failed. However, both models produced distinct estimates of technical inefficiency, differing in terms of average and density. In general it was possible to identify technical inneficiency average less than 5%. Furthermore, it was also observed a positive correlation between schools performance and technical inefficiency of the Brazilian schools. Given the availability of a panel of schools for the years of analysis, in a second moment, we performed some comparative exercises with the results generated by the total sample of SAEB and the panel results of schools. One of them, was done with the estimation of the production frontier itself, comparing the coefficients and significance of the variables. The other took into account the ranking of inefficiency generated sufficient by the regression. The comparative results suggest that the panel of schools is not by itself sufficient to explain the entire sample of schools surveyed by Saeb although they present similarities.

Este estudo investiga os fatores determinantes da eficiência técnica no setor de supermercados brasileiro com base na aplicação de diferentes métodos de fronteira de produção que permitem uma comparação de desempenho entre companhias. Para isso, utilizou-se uma amostra de 85 redes de supermercados em operação no Brasil entre os anos de 2006 e 2015. A metodologia de pesquisa baseou-se em três abordagens de estimação da fronteira de produção: paramétrica, não paramétrica e semiparamétrica. Na primeira, a eficiência é estimada por meio da análise da fronteira estocástica com dados em painel, e diferentes especificações para função de produção. Nessa etapa também são estimados modelos com heterogeneidade a fim de encontrar os determinantes da eficiência dos supermercados. Em seguida os métodos não paramétricos de fronteira são classificados quanto à organização dos dados, primeiramente calculou-se o DEA-Malmquist para dados em painel, e, em seguida a técnica de DEA tradicional para cada ano separadamente. Por fim, os escores de eficiência obtidos pelo DEA são organizados em painel e utilizados como variável dependente na abordagem semiparamétrica, que estima um modelo Tobit para encontrar os determinantes da eficiência. Os resultados de todas as abordagens apontam para a ineficiência do setor de supermercados brasileiro, um alerta às companhias para melhorarem seus processos produtivos. Foi identificada uma queda na eficiência técnica do setor nos últimos anos, enquanto a produtividade apresentou variação positiva, em grande parte causada pela mudança tecnológica. A análise comparativa dos resultados dos modelos mostrou que a escolha da abordagem não influencia no ranking de eficiência, por outro lado a magnitude dos escores de eficiência varia de forma significativa de um método para outro. Os modelos de SFA com heterogeneidade e DEA em dois estágios forneceram resultados diferentes quanto aos determinantes da eficiência, no entanto, na comparação da eficiência média foi possível encontrar evidências do impacto do tamanho, do poder de mercado e da realização de fusões e aquisições sobre a ineficiência dos supermercados, confirmando três das hipóteses propostas na pesquisa. Tais achados representam uma significativa contribuição para literatura sobre eficiência no varejo, ainda pouco explorada no Brasil / This study investigates the determinant technical efficiency factors in the Brazilian supermarket sector based on the application of different production frontier methods that allow a comparison of performance between companies. A sample of 85 supermarket chains operating in Brazil between 2006 and 2015 was used. The research methodology was based on three approaches of estimation of the frontier of production: parametric, non-parametric and semiparametric approach. In the first one, the efficiency is estimated through the analysis of the stochastic frontier with panel data, and different specifications for production function. In this step, models with heterogeneity are also estimated in order to find the determinants of supermarket efficiency. Then the non-parametric frontier methods are classified as to the organization of the data, first the DEA-Malmquist was used for panel data, and then the traditional DEA technique for each year separately. Finally, the efficiency scores obtained by the DEA are organized as a panel and used as the dependent variable in the semiparametric approach, which estimates a Tobit model to find the determinants of efficiency. The results of all approaches point to the inefficiency of the Brazilian supermarket sector, which represents an alert for companies to improve their production processes. In addition, a drop in the sector\'s technical efficiency was identified in recent years, while the productivity showed a positive variation, largely due to technological change. The comparative analysis of the model results showed that the choice of the approach did not influence the construction of the efficiency ranking, on the other hand, the magnitude of the efficiency scores varies significantly between the approaches. SFA models with heterogeneity and two-stage DEA provided different results regarding efficiency determinants; however, in the comparison of the average efficiency it was possible to find evidence of the impact of size, market power and mergers and acquisitions on the supermarket inefficiency, confirming three of the hypotheses proposed in the research. These findings represent a significant contribution to literature on retail efficiency, which is still little explored in Brazil.

The frontier has long been an important part of mythic American ideology as a space with untapped resources offering the potential for social mobility. This thesis looks at writing representing the three types of frontiers identified by Lucy Lockwood Hazard to demonstrate how this boundary between the “civilized” and “savage” actually reveals the instability and inaccessibility of the American Dream. Francis Parkman’s The Oregon Trail is one of the quintessential narratives about the geographical frontier; while deeply racist and sexist, it manifests doubts about the rhetoric of inhumanity attributed to indigenous populations. The industrial frontier’s creation of exploitative factory structures that were then translated into domestic spaces is illustrated by William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. The canonical novel speaks to the inability of the poor to achieve social mobility and the reemergence of social hubs as the space of opportunity. Finally, Jade Chang’s 2016 debut novel, The Wangs vs. the World, works to completely reframe the frontier genre by positing characters of color as protagonists, resisting their typical location on the “savage” side of the frontier binary. Chang uses the concept of the spiritual frontier to foreground the difficulties minorities face in order to be accepted into white society. The instabilities manifested by each of these frontiers ultimately point to the ways in which the American Dream has historically been an escapist impossibility and inflicted violence on women, lower classes, and people of color.

Oregon City lies at the base of Willamette Falls. It was one of the few known points in the Oregon Territory, as the destination for thousands coming overland to lay claim to the acres upon acres of forested land. Presently, Oregon City is known by its proximity to Portland. The two neighboring settlements were considered "long-distance," when on a spring evening in 1889, energy generated from the falls was carried through 14 miles of recently-laid copper wire to power streetlights in downtown Portland's Chapman Square. It was the first ever long-distance transmission of electricity. Oregon City, the oldest incorporated settlement west of the Rocky Mountains, is a town in transition, as it attempts to reinvent itself as something more than an old mill town, building on its natural beauty and historical significance. This essay collection showcases the history and character of Oregon City, highlighting the people and places that have called it home.

A pecuária de corte brasileira tem se destacado no cenário internacional. Apesar disso, a atividade é bastante heterogênea, refletindo em desempenho díspar entre os pecuaristas. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi mensurar a eficiência técnica dos produtores de gado de corte de regiões brasileiras selecionadas, ou seja, medir o quanto estão produzindo em relação ao máximo potencial e, de forma concomitante, analisar possíveis determinantes dessa eficiência. Para a realização deste objetivo, foi empregada a Análise de Fronteira Estocástica (SFA), e considerou-se que a produção (quantidade de arrobas produzidas) é explicada pelos insumos (terra, trabalho e capital), sistema de produção dos animais, genética e meio físico. Por sua vez, as variáveis explicativas para a eficiência técnica dos produtores relacionam-se à alimentação dos animais (suplementação mineral e proteica), às pastagens (adubação, rotação de pastagens e integração lavoura-pecuária) e à assistência técnica. A base de dados quanto à produção, insumos e manejo é do Cepea/CNA, instituições que por meio do projeto \"Campo Futuro\" definem fazendas típicas de regiões importantes para a pecuária de corte. As condições do meio físico foram incorporadas na análise de duas formas alternativas: variáveis edafoclimáticas (Modelo I) e índice de aptidão do meio físico (Modelo II), provenientes do levantamento GYGA-ED e do GeoLab, respectivamente. A amostra continha informações de 279 fazendas típicas e foram analisadas entre os anos de 2002 e 2017, empregando-se o método para dados cross-section. Os resultados indicaram que a produção de gado de corte no Brasil tem desempenho médio elevado: de 91,22% no primeiro modelo e de 90,87% no segundo. Em ambos os modelos, a área de pastagens é o insumo que mais impacta na quantidade produzida, dado que, nos atuais padrões de produção, a atividade majoritariamente demanda amplas extensões de terra. No entanto, os sistemas extensivos per se impactam negativamente a produção (efeito contrário àquele verificado para o confinamento). Constatou-se, ainda, que quanto melhor é a genética dos animais (representada pelo ganho de peso diário dos mesmos), mais próxima a fazenda típica está da fronteira de produção. Os coeficientes da fronteira de produção no Modelo I sinalizaram a estreita relação entre a quantidade produzida e as variáveis edafoclimáticas, ainda que o efeito dessas seja indireto majoritariamente. Quanto às variáveis explicativas para a ineficiência técnica, em ambos os modelos a assistência técnica mostrou-se como negativa para o desempenho dos produtores. De modo contrário, no Modelo II, os resultados para o número de piquetes (proxy para a rotação de pastagens) e a suplementação mineral sugeriram que estes reduzem a ineficiência técnica da pecuária. / Brazilian beef cattle is one of the most significant activities in the international agribusiness market. Despite that, the activity is quite heterogeneous, thus producers have disparate performance. The objective of this research is to measure the technical efficiency of beef cattle producers from selected Brazilian regions, by measuring how much they are producing in relation to their maximum potential and, at the same time, analyse potential determinants of efficiency. In order to achieve this objective, Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) was used for the estimation, which considered that production (quantity produced of carcass) is explained by inputs (land, labor and capital), production system of animals, genetics and environment. In its turn, the explained variables for efficiency of producers are related to: animal feed (mineral and protein supplementation), pasture (fertilizing, rotation of pasture and crop-livestock integration) and technical assistance. For data on production, inputs and management the source are Cepea/CNA, institutions that through the \"Campo Futuro\" project define typical farms in relevant producer regions of Brazilian beef cattle. Environmental conditions were included in the analysis in two alternative ways: soil and climatic variables (1st Model) and agricultural aptitude index (2nd Model), from the GYGA-ED and GeoLab, respectively. There were information about 279 typical farms in the sample, which were analysed from 2002 to 2017. The data was pooled for estimation and, therefore, the method for cross-section data was used. The results indicated that beef cattle in Brazil has high average performance: 91.22% on the 1st Model and 90.87% on the 2nd Model. In both, among all inputs, the produced quantity is highly impacted by the pasture area since, currently, the activity demands large areas. However, low-intensity of pasture systems affects production negatively (confinement has a contrary effect). The production frontier is easier achieved when high genetic material of animals is present (represented by their daily weight gain). In the 1st Model, the coefficients indicated a close relationship among production and soil and climatic variables, however their effect is mostly indirect. Regarding the explanatory variables for technical inefficiency, in both models technical assistance reduced producer performance. On the other hand, in the 2nd Model, pasture rotation and mineral supplementation decreased in technical inefficiency of beef cattle.

This thesis compares different approaches to estimating budgets for Kuhn-Tucker (KT) demand systems, more specifically for the multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model. The approaches tested include: (1) The log-linear regression approach (2) The stochastic frontier regression approach, and (3) arbitrarily assumed budgets that are not necessarily modeled as a function of decision maker characteristics and choice-environment characteristics. The log-linear regression approach has been used in the literature to model the observed total expenditure as way of estimating budgets for the MDCEV models. This approach allows the total expenditure to depend on the characteristics of the choice-maker and the choice environment. However, this approach does not offer an easy way to allow the total expenditure to change due to changes in choice alternative-specific attributes, but only allows a reallocation of the observed total expenditure among the different choice alternatives. To address this issue, we propose the stochastic frontier regression approach. The approach is useful when the underlying budgets driving a choice situation are unobserved, but only the expenditures on the choice alternatives of interest are observed. The approach is based on the notion that consumers operate under latent budgets that can be conceived (and modeled using stochastic frontier regression) as the maximum possible expenditure they are willing to incur. To compare the efficacy of the above-mentioned approaches, we performed two empirical assessments: (1) The analysis of out-of-home activity participation and time-use (with a budget on the total time available for out-of-home activities) for a sample of non-working adults in Florida, and (2) The analysis of household vehicle type/vintage holdings and usage (with a budget on the total annual mileage) for a sample of households in Florida. A comparison of the MDCEV model predictions (based on budgets from the above mentioned approaches) demonstrates that the log-linear regression approach and the stochastic frontier approach performed better than arbitrarily assumed budgets approaches. This is because both approaches consider heterogeneity in budgets due to socio-demographics and other explanatory factors rather than arbitrarily imposing uniform budgets on all consumers. Between the log-linear regression and the stochastic frontier regression approaches, the log-linear regression approach resulted in better predictions (vis-à-vis the observed distributions of the discrete-continuous choices) from the MDCEV model. However, policy simulations suggest that the stochastic frontier approach allows the total expenditures to either increase or decrease as a result of changes in alternative-specific attributes. While the log-linear regression approach allows the total expenditures to change as a result of changes in relevant socio-demographic and choice-environment characteristics, it does not allow the total expenditures to change as a result of changes in alternative-specific attributes.

Tourists are now visiting some of the most remote and amazing places on Earth, travelling to �frontiers� on journeys that are psychological and emotional as well as geographical or physical. These extraordinary journeys to the Poles, the peaks of the highest mountains in the world, harsh deserts and even outer space test both physical and mental endurance and can be characterised as �unique� even in the current era. Travelling largely without the aid of a commercial tour operator or guide, the frontier traveller usually invests a great deal of time and resources in their travel experience, often with the assistance of sponsorship, and generally takes part in an extensive and arduous preparation period in their quest for the extraordinary. While the search for new and unique tourism destinations and experiences appears to be relentless in this post-modern era, the frontier traveller appears to be searching for the �authentic� beyond the �tourist bubble,� both in relation to self and setting. These frontier �trailblazers� are already being followed by guided adventure tourists and some of the former are supplementing their incomes and funding their own travel by leading tours or guiding others to the frontier. Studying the extraordinary experiences of the frontier traveller could therefore provide us with a glimpse of the future of travel, although likely to occur in a more structured and less risky guise. Uncovering the motivations for this form of travel will also assist with future marketing of these experiences, including elements of the marketing mix such as product development and promotion. This thesis examines the motivations behind frontier travel and considers the implications of the findings for tourism marketing. Unstructured, long interviews with 37 individuals were used to uncover the motivations behind these experiences, supplemented by content analysis of narratives produced by frontier travellers, encompassing 50 autobiographies, two online diaries and online interviews with two individuals. The interview participants were largely selected through purposive sampling, in that they were screened as fitting the criteria of a past or potential frontier traveller before being interviewed. They were predominantly born and living in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and 29 of the 37 individuals were male. Ages of participants ranged from 24 to 60 years of age. Interviews continued until saturation of categories of motivation had been reached. Texts were mainly located through searches of bookshops and libraries, including the author�s personal library. A qualitative methodological approach was chosen in order to provide rich data and allow the researcher to enter the world of the frontier traveller. An interpretive paradigm based on a constructivist paradigm underpinned this study, with an ontological stance based on multiple realities and an epistemological position where participants and myself as the researcher created understandings. The methodology outlined above was consistent with this position and was designed to identify different constructions of the data and seek consensus, where possible. The literature on motivations provides a complex plethora of theories and models, many of which contradict each other, so a principal objective of this study was to work from first principles, grounding a theory of motivations pertaining to frontier travel experiences in the data, rather than seeking to test out a pre-existing model or theory. Overall, the research findings show that motivations for frontier travel can be analysed under the broad heading of �adventure,� which is composed of a variety of sub-motives such as achievement and competence, challenge, thrill-seeking and sensation, ego, dreams or fantasies, self-actualisation, cognizance (exploration/discovery), freedom/escape motives (autonomy), isolation and solitude, spirituality, camaraderie and communitas, authenticity, prestige (external rewards), pro-social motives and a love of nature and wilderness. Risk or danger is an element of these experiences and feeds into many of the motivations identified in this study. A theory of motivations behind frontier travel experiences has been developed, covering intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, as well as achievement-motivated behaviour. Pre-travel influences and inspirations such as literature, cinema, visual stimuli, childhood games, heroes and mentors, family influences and educative influences are also considered with respect to their effect on motivational behaviour. An exploratory typology was then developed for frontier travellers, based on common motivations, which might be used to segment the market. Four basic types have been identified and labelled or categorised as �Seekers of Truth,� �Enlightened Explorers,� �Concerned Elitists,� and �Freedom Seekers.� Key motivations behind specific frontier travel experiences have also been identified. Each frontier traveller will exhibit some, but not all, of the motivations highlighted in this study. Segmenting the market on the basis of motivations may therefore be a difficult, if not impossible task. However, marketers could use the information unearthed during this study in the marketing mix to develop new products aimed at satisfying some of the key motivations and use the findings as themes to be highlighted in promotional literature such as brochures and websites. This thesis also argues that the study of travel motivations in the future would be better served by considering motivations behind market niches such as frontier travel, rather than attempting to develop a comprehensive theory of motivations covering the whole travel industry.