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open access

Hurricane Harvey and the Devastation of Dispossession

Description: Disaster science is a procedural field often construed as producing blanket policies that attempt to cover everyone, but the complexity of human lived experiences must have a space to exist within disaster science if its research and findings are to be effective. This thesis illustrates that disaster policies and publications often leave out the most vulnerable communities—those in greatest need of collective support. Through critically analyzing beautification through green space, discussing p… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Espinoza, Samantha
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Assessing Rainfall Interception by Urban Tree Canopies in Denton, Texas

Description: Rainfall interception is one mechanism by which tree canopies can reduce surface runoff in urban areas. The objectives of this research were to: 1) quantify rainfall interception by urban tree canopies, and 2) determine the influence of vegetation and microenvironmental factors on rainfall interception rates. In the city of Denton, Texas, 30 mature post oak (Quercus stellata) and blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica) trees were selected for study. Trees were assigned to one of three categories… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Edington, Patrick
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Geography of Retail Clinics Post Implementation of the Affordable Care Act

Description: Retail clinics are walk-in clinics designed for convenience and for servicing minor health issues and certain acute conditions. The model began as a way of bringing both convenience and care to areas that have lower levels of access to primary care resources. With the implementation of Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010, populations that were previously uninsured were now required to have access to some level of health insurance. These populations presented a potential new market for retai… more
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Date: August 2019
Creator: Portillo, Ethan
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Location Analysis of Lifestyle Centers: Uncovering Patterns and Potential Driving Factors behind Site Selection

Description: The shopping center has held an important place in the American economy for decades. However, the concept has seen multiple revolution in terms of format. The most recent shopping center concept to gain rapid popularity is the lifestyle center – an outdoor shopping mall made to resemble a pleasant main street setting, with a tenant mix emphasizing dining and entertainment. In other words, the lifestyle center concept is geared toward selling consumers things to do, versus things to buy. Thi… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Sorenson, Matthew R
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Lithic Production at the Mesilla Phase Placitas Arroyo Site Complex Doña Ana County, New Mexico

Description: This study of lithic analysis shifts attention from typological studies to explicitly behavioral analyses, complimenting studies of both intrasite and intersite patterns of variability and change. Analysis of several assemblages from the Placitas Arroyo site complex reveals changing patterns of raw material procurement and selection, core reduction strategies, as well as tool production and discard. The most striking result thus far is the quite uniform emphasis on flake production from well-pr… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Younger, Alexandra Carla
Partner: UNT Libraries

Particulate Matter Accumulation to Urban Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) Feathers

Description: This research investigates particulate matter (PM) deposition to rock pigeons (Columba livia) in urban environments within Denton County, Texas. Pigeon habitat was characterized within a 2-km radius at eight locations using the 2016 National Land Cover Database (NLCD). In summer 2020, feathers were sampled from 10 rock pigeons at two locations (n = 20) differing in degree of urban development. Birds were captured using walk-in funnel traps baited with bird seed. Based on molt pattern and app… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Ellis, Jennifer Lee
Partner: UNT Libraries

Assessing Agricultural and Hydrologic Potential of Ancestral Puebloan Community Centers using Open Source Data

Description: The Pueblo III period marks a critical shift in settlement location of Ancestral Puebloan people within the Mesa Verde region. Community centers during the Pueblo I and Pueblo II periods were built on mesa tops, whereas canyon-rims and alcoves became the preferred settlement location during the Pueblo III period. Beginning in the Pueblo I period, community centers consisted of linear roomblock villages. By the late Pueblo II period great house community centers influenced by the Chaco culture … more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Zarzycka, Sandra Elzbieta
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

GIS-Based Analysis of Local Climate Zones in Denton, Texas

Description: This study implemented a GIS-based analysis of local climate zones (LCZ) in Denton, TX with data sets from 2009, 2011, 2015, and 2016. The LCZ scheme enables evaluation of distinct regions' thermal characteristics with greater granularity than conventional urban-rural dichotomies. Further, the GIS-based approach to LCZ mapping allows use of high-resolution lidar data, the availability of which for the study area enabled estimation of geometric and surface cover parameters: height of roughness e… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Michel, Daniel
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Big Game, Big Decisions, and Big Government: Understanding the Effects of Commodification on Deer and Feral Hog Hunting in Texas

Description: My research examines how primary stakeholders interact with Texas' most harvested big game animals: white-tailed deer, which are increasingly impacted by chronic wasting disease (CWD), and feral hogs, which impact the landscape but effectively have no management strategy. Drawing on literature on wildlife governance in Texas, managing property and the commons, and disease landscapes, and broadly framed by themes of political and historical ecology, my research asks: (1) how do management goals … more
Date: December 2022
Creator: Tabor, Zachary Dalton
Partner: UNT Libraries

Women in Wrestling Arenas: How Globalization, Socially Produced Spaces, and Commodification Impact their Portrayal and Empowerment Post Women's Revolution

Description: The Women's Revolution in 2015 has led to a drastic shift in the ways women are portrayed in professional wrestling. The Women's Revolution came as a result of the social unrest over the lack of time women were receiving on the televised shows. Where women's storylines had centered on their sexuality, they are now presented as equal to their male counterparts after the Women's Revolution. Through an exploration of concepts in globalization, commodification, and socially produced spaces, this re… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Kohlmeyer, Collin
Partner: UNT Libraries

A Spatial Decision Support System to Dynamically Compute and Map Neighborhood Indices

Description: Neighborhoods are organic entities that are in a state of constant change and are driven by the specific context of the problem being investigated. The subsequent lack of consensus on a universal geographic definition for what constitutes a neighborhood can lead to biased interpretations of relationships between human activities and place. Further, while existing geographical information system software allows users to combine a range of geographic objects to generate regional units of analyses… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Barnett, Melissa Marie
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Soil Carbon Accumulation in an Urban Ecosystem: Canopy Cover and Management Effects

Description: Black carbon (BC), a stable form of organic carbon (OC), is a byproduct of the incomplete combustion of biomass, biofuels, and fossil fuel. The main objectives of this research are to examine the spatial distribution of OC and BC in urban soil and determine the influence of tree canopy cover and landscape maintenance on soil carbon accumulation. Soil sampling was conducted at 29 sites throughout the City of Denton, Texas, in May 2019. Samples were collected from underneath post oak canopies and… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Kang, Katherina A
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Effect of Barrier Height on Magnitude and Character of Hurricane Harvey Washover Fans, Matagorda Peninsula, Texas

Description: This study uses topographic profiles, washover fan volumes, and shoreline retreat rates to explore relationships between barrier types and Hurricane Harvey storm washover sedimentation. Pre- and post-Hurricane Harvey topographic profiles were created on 15 transects using Bare Earth LiDAR (2016) and surveyed elevations (2019). Depth and area of washover fan measurements were collected to estimate washover fan volumes. An inverse relationship was found between washover fan volume and pre- and po… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Rains, Bradley Jacob
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

App Stole My Gayborhood? A Transforming Ethos at the Intersection of Queer Urban Life and Cyberspace(s)

Description: This thesis demonstrates a queer perspective stemming from a qualitative analysis of data gathered in interviews with LGBTQ+ people to analyze a transforming ethos of gayborhoods and queer desires. In particular, the research focuses on the interactive relationship between self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) participants; the cyberspace(s) of LGBTQ+ mobile-dating applications (apps); and tangible urban places. The topic of gayborhood demise and whether such p… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Stucky, Farrell
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Death and Life of Great American Malls: (Un)Spectacular Creative Destructions, Luxury Mixed-Use Developments, and Gentrification in Dallas-Fort Worth

Description: Mall after mall was built in American cities, exhaustively emulated by developers often working in concert with civic governments. In service of capital, neoliberal urban governance engages in the risky subsidization of spatio-spectacle production, working together with private business entities to bolster tax revenue and aid in private capital accumulation. The extensive replication of malls in close geographic proximity to one another across the American landscape, erected through the neolibe… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Kirk, Richard L.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Behind the Curtain of Public Space: Revealing the Narratives of Corporate Street Hawking in Globalizing Accra

Description: All street hawkers are not the same in many Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) of the global south as often portrayed by the media and documented in extant literature. This perception has created a gap in knowledge as researchers explore street hawking activities in NICs. In this study, I investigated a new informality trend of street hawking is coming into being within the capital city of Accra, Ghana. As governance is increasingly becoming entrepreneurial, informal activities are gradually… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Ansah, Hilary Ama
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Political Economy of Retailing Sustainable Food: Green Consumerism and Sustainability

Description: In recent decades, the global impacts of unsustainable consumption and production patterns have become a leading topic of sustainability, and more recently, climate action discourse. At the policy level, green consumerism – an element of green capitalism – has been positioned as the pathway to more sustainable consumption and production (SCP) practices. Within this model, eco-labeling schemes are used to communicate various sustainability attributes, or conditions of production, to the consumer… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Toofan, Megan H.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Social Vulnerability and Bio-Emergency Planning: Identifying and Locating At-Risk Individuals

Description: In 2006, the United States Congress passed the Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) which mandated that all emergency preparedness planning shall address at-risk populations. Further, in 2013, the reauthorization of this act, known as PAHPRA, defined at-risk individuals as "children, older adults, pregnant women, and individuals who may need additional response assistance." This vague definition leaves emergency managers, planners, and public health officials with the difficult task of… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Richardson, Brian T
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Redesigning Police Beat Zone Placement to Improve 911 Response Time: A Data Driven Approach

Description: Research suggests that using data driven solutions in policing strategies improves the quality of service provided by the police department. Unfortunately, many police departments, including the Denton Police Department, do not use their spatial data to inform beat zone placement. Analysis of the current beat zone configuration found that there are disparities in the workload, as measured by number of calls for service, between beat zones. Further, there was also a statistically significant di… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Jones, Brince Robert
Partner: UNT Libraries

A Multi-Proxy Approach to Identifying Marine Overwash Sedimentation and Terrestrial Flood Sedimentation in a Coastal Lake in Southeastern Texas

Description: This research project focuses on using a multiproxy approach to discriminate between overwash and non-hurricane marsh sediments within the bed of a coastal lake. 3 marsh cores were collected in an area of McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge just south of Clam Lake that are known to contain 4 hurricane overwash deposits, Ike, Rita, Carla, and Audrey. LOI and XRF analysis were used to determine the signature of the hurricane overwash layers. 3 more cores were collected from Clam Lake where there ar… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Beaubouef, Chelsea E.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Spatial-Temporal Assessment of Irrigation Application Changes and Soil Moisture Analysis Using SMAP Maps

Description: Due to inadequate long-term and large-scale observation approach for observation of soil moisture across the globe, this study intends to unveil the importance of using simulated soil moisture fields from land surface models, forced with observed precipitation and near-surface meteorology in monitoring drought and formulating effective water management practices for continued production irrigation applications. This study shows that socio-economic and ecosystem effects can be determined by eval… more
Date: December 2021
Creator: Unal, Kerra E.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Climate Injustice and Commodification of Lives and Livelihoods in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh

Description: Just and equitable responses to the disparate impacts of climate change on communities and individuals throughout the world are at the heart of the concept of climate justice. Commodification, in the context of my research, is the process of monetizing nature and livelihoods for the purpose of surplus accumulation and profit maximization. In this study, my aim was to contextualize the concepts of climate injustice, disaster capitalism, and the commodification of lives and livelihoods in the spe… more
This item is restricted from view until January 1, 2029.
Date: December 2023
Creator: Keya, Kamrun Nahar
Partner: UNT Libraries

Building a Digital Twin of the University of North Texas Using LiDAR and GIS Data

Description: Digital twins are virtual renditions of the actual world that include real-world assets, connections, activities, and processes. Recent developments in technologies play a key role in advancing the digital twin concept in urban planning, designing, and monitoring. Moreover, the latest developments in remote sensing technology have resulted in accurate city-scale light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, which can be used to represent urban objects (buildings, vegetation, roads, and utilities), … more
This item is restricted from view until July 1, 2024.
Date: December 2023
Creator: Bhattacharjee, Shwarnali
Partner: UNT Libraries
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