Graduate and Professional Student Degree Program Research (Non-ETD)

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http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/172751

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Browsing Graduate and Professional Student Degree Program Research (Non-ETD) by Type "Technical Report"

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    Evaluating the Implementation of the National Strategy for Biosurveillance
    (2015-05-20) Armstrong, Iain; Berry, Erin; Bitter, Alexander; Colburn, Leland; Karika, Kathleen; Paulino, Jose; Redden, Rebekah; Vien, Thomas "Tex"; Williams, Lodrick;
    Biological incidents, both man-made and naturally occurring, represent a significant threat to the national security of the United States. Identifying these crises begins with the detection and reporting of essential biological disease information, known as biosurveillance. As the first of its kind, the 2012 National Strategy for Biosurveillance targets the process essential information should take to reach decisionmakers. Although there are points of strength in the system, extensive research finds the current biosurveillance infrastructure does not adequately transmit information to decisionmakers. Therefore, this report recommends three improvements to the biosurveillance system: increase incorporation of information, improve interagency relationships, and strengthen governance in the biosurveillance community.
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    THE MORPHOLOGY OF KNM-ER1805: A Reconsideration of an Enigmatic Specimen
    (2009) Grossman, Ricci L.
    In the past, KNM-ER 1805 has been designated as a paratype for Homo erectus, H. ergaster, H. habilis, and H. rudolfensis. Based on its stratigraphic position within the KBS layer (~1.85mya) of the Koobi Fora Formation, this specimen can be temporally associated with all of these taxa, and with Paranthropus boisei. Although the majority of researchers attribute KNM-ER 1805 to the genus Homo, some suggest it might be more appropriately allocated to Paranthropus or Australopithecus, thus this issue remains unresolved. This study examines 27 metric and 122 non-metric cranial and mandibular features of several groups of African Plio-Pleistocene hominins to determine the phylogenetic status of KNM-ER 1805 relative to contemporary hominin taxa. It employs multivariate exploration techniques (principal components and discriminant function analyses) and phylogeny reconstruction methods: CONTML for continuous characters as well as PAUP* (parsimony) and MrBayes (Bayesian analysis) for discrete characters. Results of the multivariate analyses reveal an association between KNM-ER 1805 and specimens allocated to A. africanus, H. habilis, and H. ergaster. Cladograms produced from the phylogenetic analyses show little resolution, but in each instance where a clear separation between Homo and the australopithecines (Paranthropus and Australopithecus) is revealed, KNM-ER 1805 consistently groups with the australopithecines. These results suggest KNM-ER 1805 is not a typical specimen of H. habilis/rudolfensis or H. erectus/ergaster, despite the fact that it has been cited as a paratype for each of these taxa. Furthermore, these results suggest the affinity of this enigmatic specimen may not lie with the genus Homo at all.
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    PARTICIPATORY MAPPING GIS TOOLS FOR MAKING HIDDEN PLACES VISIBLE: A CASE STUDY OF THE TEXAS FREEDOM COLONIES ATLAS
    (2019-06-21) Biazar, MJ (Mohammad Javad); Roberts, Andrea; Wunneburger, Douglas; Goldberg, Daniel
    Freedom colonies are historic black settlements established by freed black men and women after emancipation. They exist all over the United States with a high concentration in Texas. Black Texans founded more than 557 independent rural communities between 1865 and 1930. Today, many FCs are unmapped and many disappeared from public records, maps, and memories. Furthermore, while a comprehensive database or an interactive map of FCs’ location and information is not available the location data for known FCs is scattered across various archives and agencies. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project is an evolving social justice initiative aiming to document historic black settlements names and locations as well as gathering information about community origin stories, cultural practices, and providing support to grassroots preservation groups and their planning activities. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project Atlas and Study is a digital humanities platform based on research and crowdsourced data about freedom colony place, heritage, and social geographic data in Texas serving as an interactive map and online archive in order to make them visible to policymakers, researchers, and descendants of settlement founders.
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    What to Cut and How to Cut? Historical Lessons from Past Reductions in the Intelligence Community
    (2012) Cook, Austin; Edmiston, William; Glenn, Stuart; Goodwin, Derek; Kaehr, Matthew; Nebl, James; Phares, Benjamin; Yang, Elizabeth; Yeo, Jessica; Castillo, Jasen
    Under what conditions can the Intelligence Community cut its resources while still maintaining their effectiveness? What do past eras of reduction suggest about what to cut and how best to cut? The United States Government faces pressure to reduce its overall expenditures. This will likely spur calls to reduce the country’s foreign policy and defense budget. Under the current fiscal environment, these cuts will surely include the Intelligence Community, which grew rapidly over the last ten year’s. Prudent policymakers, therefore, should start thinking now about what they can cut and how they should implement these changes while still carrying out their missions effectively. This project will help the Intelligence Community think about these problems by examining the lessons learned from previous eras of reduction. The project will produce an article-length report as well as a briefing. Team members will brief the sponsor in their Washington, DC office.
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    Youth Employment in Ghana: Conditions and Determinants
    (2015-06-11) Barrett, Zachary; Berrios, Andrea; He, Yukuai; Larsen, Sean; Novoa, Miguel; Twumasi-Ankrah, Kwame; Vega, Camille; Mu, Ren
    Youth employment, and its limitations, is a pertinent problem that most developing nations face. “Youth Employment in Ghana: Conditions and Determinants” is a student-led research project that summarizes and analyzes the conditions of youth employment in Ghana as of 2013. The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of individual, household, and community characteristics on youth employment outcomes. This study finds that Ghana’s youth labor issues center around the low quality of jobs rather than unemployment. The findings highlight the issue of gender gap, the importance of family background and community infrastructure in youth labor outcomes.