Black churchgoers, environmental activism, and the preservation of nature in Miami, Florida

The goal of this project was to explore activism, attitudes, and imagery connecting Black churchgoers in Miami, Florida and the natural environment. The research approach was qualitative, began as exploratory research, and used the techniques of snowball sampling, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews. Three case studies representing various socio-economic levels, denominations, participant education levels, and environmental facets were chosen for in-depth ethnographic research. There are three major findings in the research. First, there is a link between the preservation of Black history and the preservation of the environment among Black churchgoers, who feel strong connections to a sense of place, rural life, and the past. However their work is strongly directed to bring about benefits for people and the environment in the present and the future. Second, public access to public lands is a basic and important right espoused by these Black churchgoing activists. Third, the vocabulary used by Black churchgoing activists regarding the natural environment differs from today's “mainstream” environmentalists. The concept of “beauty” is pivotal to Black appreciation of and activism toward the environment and is reminiscent of the early environmental protection movement in the United States and conservationists such as John Muir. These findings concerning how Black spirituality relates to the environment adds to the sparse literature on the subject, and provides for potential linkages between Blacks and “mainstream” environmental groups to benefit both parties. An understanding of the connections between Black spirituality and perceptions of the environment should facilitate the development of better programs to improve and protect the environment. Environmental projects may also address the social and economic needs of Black communities, churches, and congregations, as well as the ecosystem. ^

The Everglades Ecosystem and the Politics of Nature

In this article, I offer an institutional history of the ecosystem concept, tracing shifts in its meaning and application as it has become the key organizing principle for the Everglades restoration program in Florida. Two institutional forms are analyzed here: (1) quasigovernmental organizations, a term I use to describe interagency science collaboratives and community stakeholder organizations, and (2) government bureaucracies, which are the administrative agencies tasked with Everglades restoration planning and implementation. In analyzing these knowledge trajectories, I both document the complex networks of relations that facilitate the ecosystem’s emergence as an object of knowledge and examine the bureaucratic claims to authority that circumscribe the ecosystem’s transformation into policy.

Kit-of-parts architecture : an exploration into the standardization and simplification of an urban residential building unit

This thesis focuses on the design of a construction method that utilizes a single adaptable kit-of-parts system. The new system is designed to be flexible while also enhancing construction speeds without severely limiting the building's ability to merge into an urban fabric. This thesis proposes a residential structure to be built from a handful of simple structural units. This is accomplished through the design of a residential building situated in an area of Miami currently under reconstruction.

Unravelling the evolution of autumn colours: an interdisciplinary approach.

Leaf colour change is commonly observed in temperate deciduous forests in autumn. This is not simply a side effect of leaf senescence, and, in the past decade, several hypotheses have emerged to explain the evolution of autumn colours. Yet a lack of crosstalk between plant physiologists and evolutionary ecologists has resulted in slow progress, and so the adaptive value of this colour change remains a mystery. Here we provide an interdisciplinary summary of the current body of knowledge on autumn colours, and discuss unresolved issues and future avenues of research that might help reveal the evolutionary meaning of this spectacle of nature.

Vegetation dynamics and their implications for the management of wetlands in the lowlands of Nepal

The maintenance of species richness is often a priority in the management of nature reserves, where consumptive use of resources is generally prohibited. The purpose of this research was to improve management by understanding the vegetation dynamics in the lowlands of Nepal. The objectives were to determine vegetation associations in relation to environments and human-induced disturbances that affect vegetation dynamics on floodplains, where upstream barrages had altered flooding patterns, and consumptive use of plant resources was influencing natural processes. Floodplain vegetation in relation to physical environments and disturbances were studied along transects, perpendicular to the course of the Mahakali River in the western Terai, Nepal. Forest structural changes were studied for three years in ten plots. A randomized split-block experiment with nine burning and grazing treatments was performed in seasonally flooded grasslands. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to assess people's socio-economic status, natural resource use patterns and conservation attitudes. ^ Elevation, soil organic matter, nitrogen, percentage of sand and grazing intensity were significant in delineating herbaceous vegetation assemblages, whereas elevation and livestock grazing were significant in defining forest type boundaries. On the floodplain islands, highly grazed Dalbergia sissoo-Acacia catechu forests were devoid of understory woody vegetation, but the lightly grazed D. sissoo-mixed forests had a well-developed second canopy layer, comprising woody species other than D. sissoo and A. catechu. In grasslands, species richness and biomass production were highest at intermediate disturbance level represented by the lightly grazed and ungrazed early-burned treatments. Ethnicity, education and resource use patterns were important in influencing conservation attitudes. A succession towards the mixed forests would occur in D. sissoo-dominated floodplain forests, where dams and barrages reduce flooding and associated fluvial processes, and if livestock grazing is stopped, as occasionally suggested by nature conservationists. In seasonally flooded grasslands, early burning with moderate grazing would enhance the species diversity and productivity. There is a need to implement a participatory integrated wetland management plan, to include community development, education and off farm income generation, to assure participatory conservation and management of wetlands in Nepal. ^

Geographic provenancing of unprocessed cotton using elemental analysis and stable isotope ratios

Cotton is the most abundant natural fiber in the world. Many countries are involved in the growing, importation, exportation and production of this commodity. Paper documentation claiming geographic origin is the current method employed at U.S. ports for identifying cotton sources and enforcing tariffs. Because customs documentation can be easily falsified, it is necessary to develop a robust method for authenticating or refuting the source of the cotton commodities. This work presents, for the first time, a comprehensive approach to the chemical characterization of unprocessed cotton in order to provide an independent tool to establish geographic origin. Elemental and stable isotope ratio analysis of unprocessed cotton provides a means to increase the ability to distinguish cotton in addition to any physical and morphological examinations that could be, and are currently performed. Elemental analysis has been conducted using LA-ICP-MS, LA-ICP-OES and LIBS in order to offer a direct comparison of the analytical performance of each technique and determine the utility of each technique for this purpose. Multivariate predictive modeling approaches are used to determine the potential of elemental and stable isotopic information to aide in the geographic provenancing of unprocessed cotton of both domestic and foreign origin. These approaches assess the stability of the profiles to temporal and spatial variation to determine the feasibility of this application. This dissertation also evaluates plasma conditions and ablation processes so as to improve the quality of analytical measurements made using atomic emission spectroscopy techniques. These interactions, in LIBS particularly, are assessed to determine any potential simplification of the instrumental design and method development phases. This is accomplished through the analysis of several matrices representing different physical substrates to determine the potential of adopting universal LIBS parameters for 532 nm and 1064 nm LIBS for some important operating parameters. A novel approach to evaluate both ablation processes and plasma conditions using a single measurement was developed and utilized to determine the "useful ablation efficiency" for different materials. The work presented here demonstrates the potential for an a priori prediction of some probable laser parameters important in analytical LIBS measurement.

Sociocultural complexities of ecosystem restoration: Remaking identity, landscape and belonging in the Florida Everglades

The Florida Everglades is a highly diverse socionatural landscape that historically spanned much of the south Florida peninsula. Today, the Florida Everglades is an iconic but highly contested conservation landscape. It is the site of one of the world's largest publicly funded ecological restoration programs, estimated to cost over $8 billion (U.S. GAO 2007), and it is home to over two million acres of federally protected lands, including the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. However, local people's values, practices and histories overlap and often conflict with the global and eco-centric values linked to Everglades environmental conservation efforts, sparking environmental conflict. My dissertation research examined the cultural politics of nature associated with two Everglades conservation and ecological restoration projects: 1) the creation and stewardship of the Big Cypress National Preserve, and 2) the Tamiami Trail project at the northern boundary of Everglades National Park. Using multiple research methods including ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, participant observation, surveys and semi-structured interviews, I documented how these two projects have shaped environmental claims-making strategies to Everglades nature on the part of environmental NGOs, the National Park Service and local white outdoorsmen. In particular, I examined the emergence of an oppositional white identity called the Gladesmen Culture. My findings include the following: 1) just as different forms of nature are historically produced, contingent and power-laden, so too are different claims to Everglades nature; 2) identity politics are an integral dimension of Everglades environmental conflicts; and 3) the Big Cypress region's history and contemporary conflicts are shaped by the broader political economy of development in south Florida. My dissertation concluded that identity politics, class and property relations have played a key, although not always obvious, role in shaping Everglades history and environmental claims-making, and that they continue to influence contemporary Everglades environmental conflicts.

Stray dogs in Bucharest, and the political economy of Romanian socialism. From hunting the “enemies” of Stalinist economy, to poisoning urban parasites, and the rise of urban anarchy: 1950s-1990s.

My paper discusses three different ways in which stray dogs have been intertwined with ideologies of economic and urban development in Romania. I categorize results from archival and ethnographic research under three major time periods: early socialism, late socialism, and post-socialism. During early socialism stray dogs were seen to be damaging the soviet economy by killing species that humans could also hunt, like rabbits. During late socialism, stray dogs appeared as the enemies of the communist city, and the department of urban sanitation was given orders to poison dogs with strychnine. Finally, the increasing number of stray dogs in Bucharest after the collapse of communism was seen as a direct result of former communist demolitions, and was also taken as a sign of the collapsing state. Through such examples my paper discusses how the state and particular population groups have seen dogs as parts of an unwanted and dangerous nature, rather than a species that needs to be protected. I argue that distinctions of nature and culture have served discourses of civilization and the view of Bucharest as a model socialist, and then European city. Throughout my paper I juxtapose the treatment of stray dogs with other, more “valued” urban natures like the protection of parks, the wide-spread hobby of pigeon breeding during socialist years, the most recent debate on saving the rural area of Rosia Montana from non-environmentally friendly methods of gold extraction, and the current trend of healthy eating and living.

Workplace Aggression: A Reconceptualization Of The Construct & An Exploration Of Strain Based Outcomes

The examination of Workplace Aggression as a global construct conceptualization has gained considerable attention over the past few years as organizations work to better understand and address the occurrence and consequences of this challenging construct. The purpose of this dissertation is to build on previous efforts to validate the appropriateness and usefulness of a global conceptualization of the workplace aggression construct. This dissertation has been broken up into two parts: Part 1 utilized a Confirmatory Factor Analysis approach in order to assess the existence of workplace aggression as a global construct; Part 2 utilized a series of correlational analyses to examine the relationship between a selection of commonly experienced individual strain based outcomes and the global construct conceptualization assessed in Part 1. Participants were a diverse sample of 219 working individuals from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk participant pool. Results of Part 1 did not show support for a one-factor global construct conceptualization of the workplace aggression construct. However, support was shown for a higher-order five-factor model of the construct, suggesting that it may be possible to conceptualize workplace aggression as an overarching construct that is made up of separate workplace aggression constructs. Results of Part 2 showed support for the relationships between an existing global construct workplace aggression conceptualization and a series of strain-based outcomes. Utilizing correlational analyses, additional post-hoc analyses showed that individual factors such as emotional intelligence and personality are related to the experience of workplace aggression. Further, utilizing moderated regression analysis, the results demonstrated that individuals experiencing high levels of workplace aggression reported higher job satisfaction when they felt strongly that the aggressive act was highly visible, and similarly, when they felt that there was a clear intent to cause harm. Overall, the findings of this dissertation do support the need for a simplification of its current state of measurement. Future research should continue to examine workplace aggression in an effort to shed additional light on the structure and usefulness of this complex construct.

Workplace Aggression: A Reconceptualization of The Construct & an Exploration of Strain Based Outcomes

The examination of Workplace Aggression as a global construct conceptualization has gained considerable attention over the past few years as organizations work to better understand and address the occurrence and consequences of this challenging construct. The purpose of this dissertation is to build on previous efforts to validate the appropriateness and usefulness of a global conceptualization of the workplace aggression construct. This dissertation has been broken up into two parts: Part 1 utilized a Confirmatory Factor Analysis approach in order to assess the existence of workplace aggression as a global construct; Part 2 utilized a series of correlational analyses to examine the relationship between a selection of commonly experienced individual strain based outcomes and the global construct conceptualization assessed in Part 1. Participants were a diverse sample of 219 working individuals from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk participant pool. Results of Part 1 did not show support for a one-factor global construct conceptualization of the workplace aggression construct. However, support was shown for a higher-order five-factor model of the construct, suggesting that it may be possible to conceptualize workplace aggression as an overarching construct that is made up of separate workplace aggression constructs. Results of Part 2 showed support for the relationships between an existing global construct workplace aggression conceptualization and a series of strain-based outcomes. Utilizing correlational analyses, additional post-hoc analyses showed that individual factors such as emotional intelligence and personality are related to the experience of workplace aggression. Further, utilizing moderated regression analysis, the results demonstrated that individuals experiencing high levels of workplace aggression reported higher job satisfaction when they felt strongly that the aggressive act was highly visible, and similarly, when they felt that there was a clear intent to cause harm. Overall, the findings of this dissertation do support the need for a simplification of its current state of measurement. Future research should continue to examine workplace aggression in an effort to shed additional light on the structure and usefulness of this complex construct.

New trends in health architecture for children and the effects of the built environment on young patients

The objective of this thesis was to investigate the effects of the built environment on the outcome of young patients. This investigation included recent innovations in children's hospitals that integrated both medical and architectural case studies as part of their design issues. In addition, the intervention responded to man-made conditions and natural elements of the site. The thesis project, a Children's Rehabilitation Hospital, is located at 1500 N.W. River Drive in Miami, Florida. The thesis intervention emerged from a site analysis that focused on the shifting of the urban grid, the variation in scale of the immediate context and the visual-physical connection to the river's edge. Furthermore, it addressed the issues of overnight accommodation for patient's families, as well as sound control through the use of specific materials in space enclosures and open courtyards. The key to the success of this intervention lies in the special attention given to the integration between nature and the built environment. Issues such as the incorporation of nature within a building through the use of vistas and the exploitation of natural light through windows and skylights, were pivotal in the creation of a pleasant environment for visitors, employees and young patients.

Geographic Provenancing of Unprocessed Cotton Using Elemental Analysis and Stable Isotope Ratios

Cotton is the most abundant natural fiber in the world. Many countries are involved in the growing, importation, exportation and production of this commodity. Paper documentation claiming geographic origin is the current method employed at U.S. ports for identifying cotton sources and enforcing tariffs. Because customs documentation can be easily falsified, it is necessary to develop a robust method for authenticating or refuting the source of the cotton commodities. This work presents, for the first time, a comprehensive approach to the chemical characterization of unprocessed cotton in order to provide an independent tool to establish geographic origin. Elemental and stable isotope ratio analysis of unprocessed cotton provides a means to increase the ability to distinguish cotton in addition to any physical and morphological examinations that could be, and are currently performed. Elemental analysis has been conducted using LA-ICP-MS, LA-ICP-OES and LIBS in order to offer a direct comparison of the analytical performance of each technique and determine the utility of each technique for this purpose. Multivariate predictive modeling approaches are used to determine the potential of elemental and stable isotopic information to aide in the geographic provenancing of unprocessed cotton of both domestic and foreign origin. These approaches assess the stability of the profiles to temporal and spatial variation to determine the feasibility of this application. This dissertation also evaluates plasma conditions and ablation processes so as to improve the quality of analytical measurements made using atomic emission spectroscopy techniques. These interactions, in LIBS particularly, are assessed to determine any potential simplification of the instrumental design and method development phases. This is accomplished through the analysis of several matrices representing different physical substrates to determine the potential of adopting universal LIBS parameters for 532 nm and 1064 nm LIBS for some important operating parameters. A novel approach to evaluate both ablation processes and plasma conditions using a single measurement was developed and utilized to determine the “useful ablation efficiency” for different materials. The work presented here demonstrates the potential for an a priori prediction of some probable laser parameters important in analytical LIBS measurement.

Sociocultural Complexities of Ecosystem Restoration: Remaking Identity, Landscape and Belonging in the Florida Everglades

The Florida Everglades is a highly diverse socionatural landscape that historically spanned much of the south Florida peninsula. Today, the Florida Everglades is an iconic but highly contested conservation landscape. It is the site of one of the world’s largest publicly funded ecological restoration programs, estimated to cost over $8 billion (U.S. GAO 2007), and it is home to over two million acres of federally protected lands, including the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. However, local people’s values, practices and histories overlap and often conflict with the global and eco-centric values linked to Everglades environmental conservation efforts, sparking environmental conflict. My dissertation research examined the cultural politics of nature associated with two Everglades conservation and ecological restoration projects: 1) the creation and stewardship of the Big Cypress National Preserve, and 2) the Tamiami Trail project at the northern boundary of Everglades National Park. Using multiple research methods including ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, participant observation, surveys and semi-structured interviews, I documented how these two projects have shaped environmental claims-making strategies to Everglades nature on the part of environmental NGOs, the National Park Service and local white outdoorsmen. In particular, I examined the emergence of an oppositional white identity called the Gladesmen Culture. My findings include the following: 1) just as different forms of nature are historically produced, contingent and power-laden, so too are different claims to Everglades nature; 2) identity politics are an integral dimension of Everglades environmental conflicts; and 3) the Big Cypress region’s history and contemporary conflicts are shaped by the broader political economy of development in south Florida. My dissertation concluded that identity politics, class and property relations have played a key, although not always obvious, role in shaping Everglades history and environmental claims-making, and that they continue to influence contemporary Everglades environmental conflicts.

Workplace aggression: A reconceptualization of the construct & an exploration of strain based outcomes

The examination of Workplace Aggression as a global construct conceptualization has gained considerable attention over the past few years as organizations work to better understand and address the occurrence and consequences of this challenging construct. The purpose of this dissertation is to build on previous efforts to validate the appropriateness and usefulness of a global conceptualization of the workplace aggression construct. ^ This dissertation has been broken up into two parts: Part 1 utilized a Confirmatory Factor Analysis approach in order to assess the existence of workplace aggression as a global construct; Part 2 utilized a series of correlational analyses to examine the relationship between a selection of commonly experienced individual strain based outcomes and the global construct conceptualization assessed in Part 1. Participants were a diverse sample of 219 working individuals from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk participant pool. ^ Results of Part 1 did not show support for a one-factor global construct conceptualization of the workplace aggression construct. However, support was shown for a higher-order five-factor model of the construct, suggesting that it may be possible to conceptualize workplace aggression as an overarching construct that is made up of separate workplace aggression constructs. Results of Part 2 showed support for the relationships between an existing global construct workplace aggression conceptualization and a series of strain-based outcomes. Utilizing correlational analyses, additional post-hoc analyses showed that individual factors such as emotional intelligence and personality are related to the experience of workplace aggression. Further, utilizing moderated regression analysis, the results demonstrated that individuals experiencing high levels of workplace aggression reported higher job satisfaction when they felt strongly that the aggressive act was highly visible, and similarly, when they felt that there was a clear intent to cause harm. ^ Overall, the findings of this dissertation do support the need for a simplification of its current state of measurement. Future research should continue to examine workplace aggression in an effort to shed additional light on the structure and usefulness of this complex construct.^