SEDAAG Meeting, Biloxi, MS, Nov. 2004
Index with Links to Paper Abstracts


A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   J   K   L   M   P    R   S   T   W    Z

1st Surname    Author (co-authors)        Short Title
A
Derek Alderman    Rednecks, Bluenecks, and Hickphonics: Internet Humor as Electronic Folklore about the South
Katie Algeo        Sikhing Identity in "Bend it Like Beckham"
Martin R. Arford, Sally P. Horn    The Maize Debate and Evidence for the Earliest Maize Agriculture in Costa Rica

B
Holly Barcus    New Destinations for Hispanic Migrants: An Analysis of Rural Kentucky
J.O. Joby Bass    Forty Years and More Trees:  Land Cover Change and Coffee Production in Honduras
Thomas L. Bell, Margaret M. Gripshover    Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment of Retail Viability in Central Iowa
Victoria Berry     Granite Capital of the World:” Elberton’s Rise to Prominence in the Georgia Granite Industry and Beyond
Steve Birdsall    Effects of Landscape Context on Iconographic Sites: The Mount Rushmore Example
Lisa Boulton, Carol Harden    Reach Continuity and Its Implications for Understanding Geomorphic Adjustment Processes in Channelized Streams
Dawn S. Bowen    Mapping a Vernacular Region: The Bible Belt and the South

C
Angela Cacciarru    Common Property In Sardinia (Italy)
Ronald A. Canterbury, Joseph T. Manzo, George Towers    Bird Habitats and Urban Sprawl in West Virginia
Ed Carr     Postmodern Conceptualizations, Modernist Applications: Rethinking the Role of Society in Food Security
Ngai Weng Chan, Hsiang-Te Kung    Issues and Prospects of Sustainable Development in Cameron: Highlands, Malaysia
Thomas Chapman    Globalization, Identity, and the Florida Realm of the ORION Knights of the Ku Klux Klan:  Landscapes of Resistance in Immokalee, Florida
Sebastian Cobarrubias    Fighting the FTAA from the Root Cause: Counter-summits as Spaces of Counter-Hegemonic Articulation
David J. Cowen    The Geographic Dimensions of High School Graduation Rates in South Carolina

D
Lisa DeChano, Fred Shelley    Americans, Sports, and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games
Jeremy Diem    The Norcross Anomaly: Evidence of Possible Urban Effects on Precipitation near Atlanta, Georgia
Jason Dittmer    Dracula and Eastern Europe: Teaching the Social Construction of Regions in Regional Geography Courses

E
Marcia England    "These are the people in your neighborhood": Community, crime and public space

F
Emily A. Fogarty    Year to Year Variations in Typhoon Landfalls over China
Abigail Foulds    Backpacker Tourism: No Longer Alternative
Katie Freer    Community, Participation, and Empowerment in the Revitalization of a Columbia, South Carolina Neighborhood
Christopher M. Fuhrmann, Charles E. Konrad    Summer Season Associations Between Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Characteristics and Severe Weather in the Southeastern U.S.
Taro Futamura    Policing Consumption, Policing Space: Examining Community Politics of Lexington, Kentucky's Smoking Ban

G
María José García-Quijano   From Spatial Data to Decisions: Developing a Remote Sensing-assisted Spatial Decision Support System for Hazardous Waste Site Monitoring
Jessey Gilley    Yi-Fu Tuan's Place and Local Patriotism In The Napoleon of Notting Hill A Novel by G.K. Chesterton
Hongmian Gong, James O. Wheeler    Geographic Changes in the Metropolitan Corporate South, 1995-2003
William Graves, Christopher Woodey    Risk, Finance and North Carolina's Post-Industrial Future
Kelly D. Gregg    Creating a road guide to the Cherokee Trail of Tears National Historic Trail
Margaret M. Gripshover    Jumping to Diffusion: Dog Agility Development in the Southeastern United States, 1990-2003

H
Katherine B. Hankins    The Final Frontier:  Charter Schools as New Social Institutions (or Instruments?) of Gentrification
Timothy S. Hare, Holly R. Barcus    Mapping Supply and Demand in Kentucky's Health Care System
Michael Harrison, Peter Waylen    The Coincidence of Daily Rainfall Events in Liberia, Costa Rica and Tropical Cyclones in the Caribbean Basin
Evan A. Hart    Land Use Change and Sinkhole Flooding in Cookeville, Tennessee
David Havlick    Ecological Militarization and the Changing of the Guard at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colorado
Christina Henry, Rezaul Mahmood    Life Cycle of a Severe Eastern Kentucky Flash Flood
Chris Houser, Phil Hill    Fate of Sediment from a Proposed Dredge Disposal Site on the Fraser River Delta
Zhiyong Hu, C.P. Lo    Using NDVI Differencing and Temporal Logic to Improve Land Use/cover Classification Accuracy
You-Zhen Hu, Hsiang-Te Kung    The Mysterious Landscape of the World---Tibet

J
L. Allan James    Bed Waves vs. Sediment Waves at the Basin Scale
Jason R. Janke    Rock Glacier Monitoring: A Method Combining Photogrammetric Techniques and GIS Measurements to Detect Flow and Assess Spatial Uncertainty
Tamara Johnson, Chirstian Sellar, John Surface     Geographies of Cross-Border Outsourcing, Employment and Migration Patterns in the EU and NAFTA
Brooks Alan Jolly    Describing Water Quality in Urban Watersheds using the Chemical Perturbation Index

K
Ronald V. Kalafsky    Manufacturing performance and situation: the case of two machine tool sectors
Barry Keim, Robert A. Muller, Gregory Stone     Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Tropical Storm and Hurricane Strikes  from Maine to Texas
Sara Beth Keough    Constructing a Canadian National Identity: Conceptual Explorations and Examples in Newfoundland Music
Ted Klimasewski    Climatic Competitive Index
Paul A. Knapp, Peter T. Soule'       A Climatologically "Perfect Storm" and Extensive Woodland Mortality in the Pacific Northwest

 L
Jonathan Lepofsky    Imagining Community in Economic Development: A Case Study of Durham, NC
Elizabeth J. Leppman    The Frontier Nursing Service of Hyden, Kentucky: Preliminary Considerations
Ben Logan, Lisa M. Kennedy    The Effects of European Land Use Practices on the Vegetation of Mediterranean Chile
Mark M. Long, Chris Lamb    Coercing silence: nationalism and the editorial cartooning of 9/11

M  
Kent Mathewson    Greater Louisiana Connections & Conjunctures: Placing New Orleans in Time-Geographic Perspective
Brent McCusker    The Co-Production of Livelihoods and Land Use Chang
Mark M. Miller     The Caribbean Tourism Industry: Scales of Spatial Clustering
John T. Morgan    The Farm Lime Kiln In Southwest Virginia

P
Joseph Palis    From Rio to Pernambuco: Locating the Rural-Urban Spaces of Community in 'Central Station'
Brooks C. Pearson    Comparative Accuracy in Four Civil War Maps of the Shenandoah Valley: A GIS Analysis
Jessica S. Phillips, Rezaul Mahmood    An Investigation of May 2, 2002 Flash Flood of Buchanan County, Virginia
Amy D. Pratt    Constructing Feminist Topographies in Central Appalachia and South Africa: A Conceptual Framework for Comparative Research

R
Kevin N. Raleigh    From Avondale to Winton Place: African-American Population and Median Household Income in Cincinnati Neighborhoods, 1960-2000
Carl A. Reese    Inter-Annual Variability In Pollen Dispersal And Deposition On The Tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap
Matthew J. Reilly    The Social Costs of Tourism Development: Jineteros in Havana, Cuba
Peter J. Robinson    Landscapes with low sun - Morning or evening?
Dan Royall    A Mineral Magnetic Assessment Of Urban Sediment Sources

S
Luis Sánchez    Core-periphery Relations and Separatism in the Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua
Sarah Schwartz    Potential Tourist Scarcity and Sustainable Tourism Development: Ghana's Community-based Ecotourism Sites
Bradley A. Shellito, Carl Whithaus    Mapping the Economics of Access: IT Usage For Writing Instruction in Middle and Secondary Education
Christa A. Smith    A Spatial Analysis of Habitat for Humanity Homes in Americus, Georgia
Grant R. Sorrell, Gary A. O'Dell    Erosion control and hurricane protection: The Isabel experience at Virginia Beach
Philip W. Suckling    Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Tornado Path Direction
Selima Sultana    Are Dual-Earner Households a Constraint for Integrating the Jobs/Housing Balance Concept in Urban and Transport Policy?

T
William Terry    WAIF-FM: A Case Study in Community Radio's Place in a Globalizing Mediascape
Alice V. Turkington    The lifetime of stone: methodological and theoretical considerations

W
Charles H. Wade    Geographic History Repeating Itself?  An Examination of the post-World War II Discourse Surrounding Regional Geography
Johnathan Walker    The Creation of a Labor Migration: Central American Workers in the Delmarva Poultry Industry
Barney Warf    Do Voting Technologies Discriminate Against Southern Democrats and Minorities?
Timothy A. Warner, James B. McGraw, Rick E. Landenberger    Segmentation for improved classification accuracy of individual species in a closed canopy, deciduous forest
Joe Weber    Evaluating the Effects of Individual and Neighborhood Characteristics on Commuting Distance: A Multilevel Analysis
Henrietta Williams    NAFTA and the Blurring of Borders:  International Nurse Recruitment in Chapel Hill, NC

Z
Charlie H. Zhang    Using Nighttime Light Image for Urban Area Mapping and Population Estimation A Proposal for Case Study in South Carolina
Wen-Xiu Zhou, Hsiang-te Kung    An Unique Culture of Naxi Ethnic Group in Yunnan, China


Abstracts

Rednecks, Bluenecks, and Hickphonics: Internet Humor as Electronic Folklore about the South. 
Derek H. Alderman. East Carolina University
   In the early 1800s, a group of humorists emerged from the rapidly advancing western frontier of the American South. Their humor arose out of a regional consciousness and tension, a perceived need to differentiate the South from other sections of the country and to celebrate the earthy language and unsophisticated exploits of southern backwoodsmen.  The Internet is the latest in a long line of media to carry on the tradition of southern humor.  In the same way that the 19th century humorist collected and preserved oral tales circulating around the frontier, the online humorist places great importance on using the Web to receive, assemble, and disseminate the jokes and stories of others.  The Internet—rather than destroying the importance of geography—functions as a form of electronic folklore about places and regions, particularly the idea of a distinctive South.  The notion of Internet folklore prompts us to consider the co-development and co-evolution of virtual and non-virtual cultural practices.  In this paper, I present several online cultural texts and examine the legacy of two themes from 19th century southern humor—language and regional identity.  Like their frontier counterparts, virtual humorists emphasize the vernacular and unsophisticated language of southerners.  Online humorists also maintain the frontier tradition of defending the cultural uniqueness of the South against real and imagined threats from the North.

Sikhing Identity in "Bend it Like Beckham"
Katie Algeo, Western Kentucky University
   The popular British film "Bend it Like Beckham" is pedagogically useful for exploring the issues of cultural identity, social construction of identity, and "othering" in the geography classroom.  This paper supplies background on Sikh religious beliefs and migration history that will help the student understand the context of the film.  It explicates specific cultural practices and references that are part of the ordinary lived experience for the film's characters, but will be obscure to the typical American viewer.  It goes on to analyze the film’s portrayal of the social construction of ethnic, gender, and sexual identities experienced by three of the film's main characters.

The Maize Debate and Evidence for the Earliest Maize Agriculture in Costa Rica
Martin R. Arford and Sally P. Horn
Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
   AMS 14-C dates on maize cobs from caves and rockshelters indicate that maize was domesticated in Mexico by ~7000 years ago, but debate continues over when and how cultivation spread southward.  In the absence of macrofossils, microfossils from lake sediments and archaeological sites, which are indirectly dated, serve as evidence of past maize agriculture.  Fueling the debate are microfossil dates for early maize agriculture in Central and South America which predate macrofossil evidence by 1000 years or more.  H. Iltis’ hypothesis that maize was initially grown for its sweet stalks might explain the lack of early macrofossil remains.  We present here pollen evidence for the earliest maize agriculture in Costa Rica, from Laguna Martínez, at ~5400 calendar years BP.  Our date is slightly older than an indirectly-dated maize kernel from an archaeological site ~35 km to the east, suggesting early maize in Costa Rica was grown as a cereal crop. Additional archaeological and paleoecological research may help to refine our understanding of the early spread and use of maize in Costa Rica.
 
New Destinations for Hispanic Migrants: An Analysis of Rural Kentucky
Holly R. Barcus
Institute for Regional Analysis and Public Policy, Morehead State University
   Rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States between 1990 and 2000 was complemented by a declining geographic concentration of Hispanics in traditional states such as California and Texas and the emergence of new destinations throughout the country.  Of those states experiencing the greatest percentage change in total Hispanic population, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, and Kentucky were among the top ten. 
This paper examines the geographic distribution of Hispanic populations in Kentucky between 1990 and 2000 using US Bureau of Census data and the Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS).  A major conclusion is that the Hispanic population is dispersing away from urban areas and showing signs of residential stability in rural communities.  The implications for Kentucky are significant: the attraction of migrants who are settling and remaining in place provides hope for invigorating local rural economies through population growth, entrepreneurial investment, and increased ethnic diversity. 

Forty Years and More Trees:  Land Cover Change and Coffee Production in Honduras 
J.O. Joby Bass
Department of Geography, University of Southern Mississippi
   Land cover change in the American tropics is a topic of much scholarly concern.  Detecting change in land cover, one is compelled to ascertain the details of that change and the processes behind it.  An area in the mountainous region of western Honduras has seen an increase in land cover since the 1950s.  Aerial photographic analysis indicates an increase greater than 20%.  Recent fieldwork illustrates that this increase, while trees, is primarily in the form of shade coffee fincas.  A landscape sample shows the variety of landscape types that characterize the vegetation increase that has taken place. 

Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment of Retail Viability in Central Iowa
Thomas L. Bell (tlbell@utk.edu) and Margaret M. Gripshover (mgripsho@utk.edu)
Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN  37996-0925
   What has become of traditional central place viability of small towns within a reasonable commuting range of a much larger central place the era of big-box retailing? A central Iowa study area was reexamined after thirty years of retailing change and, not surprisingly, there has been a great deal of retail decline.  There are, however, rays of hope for small town service provision as we interpreted the results of field observations. A quantitative assessment of actual compared with expected retail sales confirmed that within certain sectors of the economy and in particular geographic locales viability can be maintained.  Entrepreneurial adaptation to the changed economic conditions is present in geographically privileged small towns in central Iowa.  Serving market niches in places with good interstate access or high traffic volumes on primary roads may allow small town merchants to survive and even thrive in an increasingly competitive retailing and service environment as long as they preserve their historic shopping core. 
   Keywords: central place; functional attrition, marketing geography, Iowa

“Granite Capital of the World:”   Elberton’s Rise to Prominence in the Georgia Granite Industry and Beyond
M. Victoria Berry, Winston-Salem State University
   The 2002 Rand McNally Road Atlas lists 3 Granite Falls, 3 Granitevilles, 2 Granites, 1 Granite Quarry and 1 Granite City, but there is only one “Granite Capital of the World” (Fig. 1), Elberton, Georgia. This paper is but a debut of a work in progress on the economic scope of Georgia’s Granite Industry. Here I will examine the support of Elberton’s claim to fame as the granite “Capital” but will focus on the historical reasons for the geographic concentration of the dimension granite industry in Elbert County. I will also briefly examine imports and exports. Statistical data are derived primarily from U.S. Department of Interior sources and may be limited by the nature of business self disclosure.

Effects of Landscape Context on Iconographic Sites: The Mount Rushmore Example
Stephen S. Birdsall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
   The primary focus of iconographic landscape commentary has been on the symbolic features defining such landscapes. The implied meanings carried by the broader landscape context and the impacts of these wider implied meanings are less frequently considered. I suggest that landscape context can have a significant effect on how the primary focus of awareness, the icon itself, is understood. The mix of continuing criticism and adulation of Mount Rushmore’s existence and form, along with the familiarity of its iconography, provide an apt example. To what degree does the landscape context at Mount Rushmore distract from or shift the alignment of the Presidential carvings’ formal iconography? Analysis of the park’s artificial and natural settings support the argument that context can affect iconographic meaning.

Reach Continuity and Its Implications for Understanding Geomorphic Adjustment Processes in Channelized Streams
M. A. Lisa Boulton and Carol P. Harden, Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
   This paper presents results from a study of geomorphic adjustment processes in three tributary streams of the Lower Hatchie River Basin in west Tennessee undertaken to: 1) identify the spatial extent of geomorphic adjustment processes in tributary streams and 2) examine the continuity of channel morphology characteristics as a proxy indicator of sediment connectivity.  Results of channel morphology surveys, bank descriptions, and statistical analysis using multi-response permutation procedure suggest dynamically evolving channel morphologies, with widening and aggrading processes dominating.  Patterns of reach morphology continuity suggests sediment connectivity occurs in reaches receiving sediment from system-wide sources, while a lack of reach morphology continuity suggests poor sediment connectivity due to localized sediment source areas, specifically bank failures. Results support the need for better understanding of sediment dynamics in adjusting systems.  In particular, understanding the degree of sediment connectivity in adjusting tributary streams could help understand the evolution of geomorphic adjustment processes in channelized streams.   

Mapping a Vernacular Region: The Bible Belt and the South
Dawn S. Bowen, Department of Geography, University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
   What is the Bible Belt?  Geographers are concerned with the location and identity of regions; most people seem to know where the Bible Belt is.  It’s in the South.  But where specifically?  In 1978, Charles Heatwole mapped the Bible Belt using 1971 religious data.  The goal of this project is to utilize 2000 data to produce a series of maps of the Bible Belt today and to revisit Heatwole’s depiction of the Bible Belt.  The paper neither discusses the emergence of evangelical Protestantism in the South nor accounts for any changes that might have occurred in the number of evangelical Protestants in the region.  Instead, it draws attention to some variables that seem to be significant in determining levels of conservative religious belief, and raises numerous questions requiring further investigation before definitive conclusions about the region and its boundaries can be drawn.

Common Property In Sardinia (Italy)
Angela Cacciarru, University of North Carolina, Department of Geography, Chapel Hill, (919) 962-3920, cacciarr@email.unc.edu
   The objective of this paper is to offer an historical overview of common property practices in Sardinian (Italy) land use, and of the complex relationships between local land use patterns, environmental equilibrium, and property and land use laws.  The time period considered is mostly from the early 19th to the early 20th century. The “Regio Decreto di Carlo Alberto” (King Carlo Alberto’s Decree) of 1836, which forbade observance of common property with respect to land, encouraged the development of private property and represented the beginning of the fragmentation of agricultural property in Sardinia.  Paradoxically, the very same Decreto, which was supposed to improve land management and the condition of the rural people in Sardinia, was the main cause of the destruction of the Sardinian forested lands, which had negative environmental impact and serious economic implications for the rural populations. 
   Bibliographic research was focused on the analysis of socio-economic studies developed between 1885 and 1989, and on the laws and regulation that, in the second half the 19th century, regulated land use in Sardinia.  Particular attention was given to the analysis of the structure of the land ownership in Sardinia, after the “Regio Decreto di Carlo Alberto” (King Carlo Alberto’s Decree) of 1836.

Bird Habitats and Urban Sprawl in West Virginia
Ronald A. Canterbury, Joseph T. Manzo (presenter), George Towers, Concord University
   In 2000, West Virginia led the nation in sprawl.  The purpose of this study was to explore the affect of sprawl on bird habitats.  Bird habitats are indicators of ecosystem viability.  As such, they are clearly linked to people through sprawl.  High school students, supervised by teachers and higher education faculty, studied sprawl, netted and banded birds, and applied GIS to generate data that indicate, in the Kanawha valley of West Virginia, there are some replacement species, there are missing species, and the ecosystem is in flux.  This work was supported by a Grosvenor Grant from the National Geographic Society.

Postmodern Conceptualizations, Modernist Applications: Rethinking The Role Of Society In Food Security
Edward R. Carr, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, carr@sc.edu
   Food security is an important concept through which the development and aid communities identify and resolve issues of hunger in the developing world.  However, the food security literature has yet to productively address the role of society in food outcomes, instead treating “the social” as too complex or uncertain to be dealt with in a systematic manner.  This construction of society does not reflect its inherent qualities, but is instead the result of the ad-hoc manner in which food security studies have dealt with “the social” in their examination of food outcomes.  This paper puts forth an approach through which the empirical observations driving advances in food security studies might be incorporated into a broad theoretical structure that allows for the rigorous, systematic incorporation of society’s role in the study of food outcomes.

Issues And Prospects Of Sustainable Development In Cameron Highlands, Malaysia
Ngai Weng Chan1 and Hsiang-te Kung2
   1Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM Penang, Malaysia
   2Department of Earth Sciences, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152 USA
   Highlands are classified as environmentally and ecologically sensitive areas, but they are also the few areas with a cool climatic regime in a hot country such as Malaysia. Hence, highlands have been developed even during the colonial era. Due to rapid development, highlands have undergone phenomenal changes over the last half-century or so. Some of these changes have brought economic benefits but they have also resulted in negative impacts such as environmental hazards and disasters. Cameron Highlands, one of the major highland areas and a  major tourist and farming region, has experienced rapid development in the areas of agriculture, tourism, urbanization and more recently housing and infrastructure (highways), which also lead to deforestation, destruction of water catchments, soil erosion and landslides, water shortages and pollution, sedimentation of waterways and reservoirs, and downstream flooding. In terms of human society the impacts have also been felt, especially loss of life, injury, damage to infrastructure and farms, crop loss and income reduction due to landslides. This paper examines the major environmental issues and looks at ways in which they can be addressed in order to conserve and manage the area in a sustainable manner. 

Globalization, Identity, and the Florida Realm of the ORION Knights of the Ku Klux Klan:  Landscapes of Resistance in Immokalee, Florida
Thomas Chapman, Florida State University
   Economic polarization is a direct result of the globalization process, where large-scale migratory movements in search of work have profoundly affected social reproduction at the local level. These economic frustrations sometimes play out within a racist and hyper-nationalist discourse, as was the case in Immokalee, Florida in 2003, when the local Ku Klux Klan made an appearance to protest against the mostly Hispanic migrant farm workers that dominate the local labor force.  As such, I intend to illustrate how these processes of global space embedded themselves within Immokalee, resulting in a contested local landscape. The Klan action was also a local manifestation of a much larger anti-immigration protest that was rooted in alliances with other white supremacist groups nationwide, which increasingly rely on larger scales for legitimization. I call for a continuing need for the immigrant labor rights movement to counteract these spaces of hate by expanding their own alliances at transcending scales, thereby creating their own geographies of social justice.
   Key words:  globalization, Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigration, hyper-nationalism, Immokalee, labor rights

Fighting the FTAA from the Root Cause: Counter-summits as Spaces of Counter-Hegemonic Articulation
Sebastian Cobarrubius, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
   This paper was written as a reflection piece after the protests against the FTAA in Miami (2003).  It is an attempt to re-theorize the activist practice of the “countersummit” and situates itself within existing discussions in global justice movements. I use theoretical tools from Hardt and Negri, Laclau and Mouffe, as well as Featherstone.  There is an attempt to examine the scale jumping and scale construction practices engaged in by activists at countersummits and how this can be thought out as part of a tactical repertoire.

The Geographic Dimensions of High School Graduation Rates in South Carolina
David J. Cowen, Geography Department, University of South Carolina, Columbia
   High School graduation rates are a major component of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.  Therefore, they have become a focal point of a great deal of public policy debate and even the current presidential election campaign.  This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a study being conducted for the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee to examine the geographic dimensions of high school graduation rates.  The paper discusses the data sources and methodologies used to calculate graduation rates and how these data can be integrated within a GIS environment to provide insight into the spatial variability of high school graduation rates across the state.  By examining these rates both at the school district and individual school levels it is demonstrated that the rates vary systematically between different regions of the state and that the gap between black and white students has a pronounced regional variation.  The results indicate that the probability that students will receive a high school diploma is directly impacted by where they live.

Americans, Sports, And The 2004 Summer Olympic Games
Lisa M. DeChano, Western Michigan University, and Fred M. Shelley, University of Oklahoma
   The recent 2004 Summer Olympics brought people of all races, creeds, and colors together for two weeks to showcase the tremendous athletic talent from all corners of the globe.  On any given day of the Games an average of 18 million Americans sat riveted to their televisions cheering on their favorite athletes.  How do people choose who they will or will not cheer for?  This research examines some of the reasons why sports fans in America support Olympic athletes from some countries while shunning others.  Results show that the primary reasons are linked to politics and culture much more than they are athleticism.

The Norcross Anomaly: Evidence of Possible Urban Effects on Precipitation near Atlanta, Georgia. 
Jeremy E. Diem.  Georgia State University.
   Through modification of the planetary boundary layer, urbanization has the potential to significantly impact precipitation totals locally.  Using daily summer-season precipitation data at 30 stations from 1953-2002, this study explores the possibility of urban effects as causes of spatial anomalies in precipitation in a zone within 180 km of Atlanta, Georgia.  The time period is divided into consecutive epochs (e.g., 1953-1977 and 1978-2002), and inter-epochal differences in precipitation totals, heavy-precipitation days, and cumulative heavy precipitation are explored.  The southern stations experienced significant decreases in precipitation, while significant precipitation increases occurred at central/west-central stations.  The most striking increases occurred at Norcross, Georgia, which is 30 km northeast of downtown Atlanta: Norcross had the third-smallest number of heavy-precipitation days during 1953-1977, but, during 1978-2002, it had the most heavy-precipitation days.  Therefore, it is suspected that the increased precipitation at Norcross was caused by urban effects; however, precipitation increases at other stations in the study region suggest that the precipitation increase at Norcross may have occurred without any contribution from urban effects.

Dracula and Eastern Europe: Teaching the Social Construction of Regions in Regional Geography Courses
Jason Dittmer, Georgia Southern
   This article describes the difficulty of teaching about the construction of regions in regional geography courses, which are themselves built on a metageography that often goes unquestioned.  I advocate the use of popular culture to make this very complex issue palpable for undergraduates.  Thus, the construction of Eastern Europe within a larger European framework is clear through a study of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the movies that the book has spawned.  Included in this article is an analysis of the geography presented through the Dracula narrative, and the contents of the classroom experience I created to teach that analysis.  The article concludes with survey data that illustrates the reaction of the students to the lesson.
   Keywords: Regions, Eastern Europe, Popular Culture

‘These are the people in your neighborhood’: Community policing, the other and public space
Marcia England, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky
   Being part of an community can produce a feeling of belonging and of acceptance. To quote Richard Sennett: “[t]he bond of community is one of sensing common identity, a pleasure in recognizing ‘us’ and ‘who we are’” (1970, p. 31).  But to recognize ‘us’, there must be a ‘them’, an Other.  This paper addresses the creation of community through the exclusion of the Other through the examination of the discourses propagated by a neighborhood organization in Seattle, Washington in the planning of a community gathering.  These discourses on community inform conceptions of public space and who has access to that public space. Fear of the Other leads to exclusion from public space of those who are seen as threatening.  This questions the very idea of public space.

Year-to-Year Variations in Typhoon Landfalls over China
Emily A. Fogarty, Department of Geography, The Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, eaf1217@garnet.acns.fsu.edu
   The inter-annual variability of typhoon landfalls in China is investigated using modern typhoon records. A north-to-south anti-correlation in yearly activity is found. When activity over the southern coastal provinces is high, it tends to be low over the northern coastal provinces and vice versa. This spatial variation is identified using a factor analysis model, which delineates the southern provinces of Guangdong, and Hainan from the northern provinces of Fujian, Taiwan, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Shandong. An index of annual activity representing the degree to which each year follows this north-south anti-correlation pattern of activity is used to identify correlated climate variables. A useful model that includes sea level pressure diffrences between Mongolia and western China explains 18% of the inter-annual variability of the index. Physically, we suggest that a stronger than normal pressure gradient increases the easterly wind °ow over northern China which in turn favors typhoons taking a more southerly track toward Hong Kong.

Backpacker Tourism: No Longer Alternative
Abigail Foulds, University of Kentucky
   Backpacker tourism is commonly misunderstood.  Backpackers are seen to be youthful, penny-pinching hedonists who do nothing to help the host community or the tourism industry.  This article shows that this simplistic stereotype no longer applies as more and more people with varying agendas choose this tourist form.  This article also examines the cultural and economic impacts of this growing tourist style in third world nations.  As the tourism industry persistently grows and is being pushed as a viable development strategy, this article addresses why new forms of tourism like backpacker tourism could be viable alternatives to more traditional forms of tourism.

Community, Participation, and Empowerment in the Revitalization of a Columbia, South Carolina Neighborhood
Katie Freer, University of South Carolina.
   Efforts by a Columbia, SC Historically Black College to revitalize the neighborhood surrounding its campus claims to involve the residents themselves in the decision-making process.  Closer examination, however, reveals many questionable aspects involved in this initiative that presents itself as participatory and aimed at the empowerment of the African American community.  It appears that neither of these two goals of participation or empowerment is fully realized; the college-led project maintains a top-down and condescending approach to neighborhood revitalization.

Summer Season Associations Between Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Characteristics and Severe Weather in the Southeastern U.S.
Christopher M. Fuhrmann, University of Georgia, Charles E. Konrad, II, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
   Previous research conducted in the Midwest and Northeast U.S. suggests that various characteristics of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning, such as the proportion of positive amperage flashes, provide a precursor signal for the occurrence of severe weather. In this study we examine five years of summer season severe weather and CG lightning data to determine the CG lightning characteristics that best discriminate between high wind, hail, and non-severe thunderstorm events in the interior portion of the Southeast U.S. For each severe weather type, the mean temporal trends of CG lightning density are determined for various flash types of CG lightning, including low-amperage positive flashes. These trends are compared across each flash type and to an independent sample of thunderstorm events in which no severe weather is reported. These comparisons reveal the distinctions in CG lightning character between the different types of thunderstorm events (e.g. high wind vs. non-severe, hail vs. high wind, etc.). Additionally, the spatial patterns of CG lightning are documented across a 100 km domain centered over each severe weather report and non-severe thunderstorm.

Policing Consumption, Policing Space: Examining Community Politics of Lexington, Kentucky’s Smoking Ban
Taro Futamura, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, E-mail: tfuta2@uky.edu
   This paper examines the recent enactment of a smoking ban in Lexington, Kentucky. The ban, started in April 26, 2004, prohibits any smoking of cigarettes and cigars in all public facilities, including restaurants and bars. Since the law has been enacted, many restaurants and bars claim that they have struggled with significant loss of customers and sales. While the enactment of the smoking ban resulted from combinations of actions by consumers, politicians, and health activists, I argue that they largely did so through politically manipulating space of consumption. Recent studies on geographies of food from cultural and economic perspectives tend to focus on static sites of consumption. I would argue, however, that sites of consumption may be politically altered, constructed, and mediated through ethical questions related to smoking. Based on my observations and informal conversations at various restaurants and bars within the city, I discuss how the smoking ban spatialized communities of consumption through binaries such as downtown/suburbs, chain/non-chain stores, and indoor/outdoor facilities. These findings show that while issues of smoking in “public” space are often discussed in conjunction with health issues, that the transformation of the spatiality of consumption is also embedded in these discourses.
   Key words: Smoking ban, Lexington, Kentucky, public space and private space, consumption, spatiality, community.

From Spatial Data to Decisions: Developing a Remote Sensing-assisted Spatial Decision Support System for Hazardous Waste Site Monitoring
María José García-Quijano, University of South Carolina
   Managing hazardous waste is inherently costly and involves high risk. Development of new landfill monitoring approaches benefit all entities involved in waste management, including the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state governments and local municipalities. This study presents the general design of a remote sensing-assisted Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS), and the potential of hyperspectral remote sensing technologies for monitoring hazardous waste sites in an accurate, exhaustive and non-invasive manner. The results of this research are part of a larger research effort focused on the development of a functional Remote Sensing-assisted Hazardous Waste Site Monitoring SDSS at the Savannah River Site (SRS). Data mining approaches for anomaly detection are proposed as the most appropriate procedure to monitor slow-onset technological hazards at SRS.

Yi-Fu Tuan’s Place and Local Patriotism in the Napolean of Notting Hill A Novel by G.K. Chesterton
Jessey Gilley, Concord University
   G.K. Chesterton was an English novelist, journalist, and social critic.  His influence in social movements was international in scope.  Complimenting the traditional use of literature in the classroom, the purpose of this presentation is to explore the connection between the Chesterton novel “The Napoleon of Notting Hill” and the love of place described by Yi-Fu Tuan.

Geographic Changes in the Metropolitan Corporate South, 1995-2003
Hongmian Gong, Hunter College-CUNY and James O. Wheeler, University of Georgia
   In addition to the widely recognized increases in population and job growth in the U.S. Census-defined South over the past 25 years, the South has expanded greatly in the number of major corporations, based on Fortune data.  Most of these big corporations are concentrated in the major metropolitan areas of Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Washington.  In addition, several second-tiered centers (Charlotte, Memphis, Richmond, Birmingham, and Miami) have also developed a notable corporate presence, as have certain nonmetropolitan areas (in particular, Bentonville, Arkansas, and Wilkesboro, North Carolina, headquarters of Wal-Mart and Lowe’s, respectively).  Corporate headquarters have become more concentrated in the largest metropolitan areas from 1995 to 2003.  Some large Southern corporations gained in rank between 1995 and 2003, such as Home Depot, while others declined in rank, especially BellSouth, Coca-Cola, and DuPont.  Agglomeration economies, the importance of face-to-face communications, and the clustering of telecommunications infrastructure are related to the growth and aggregation of Fortune corporate headquarters in the large and fast-growth metropolitan areas in the U.S. South.
   Key words:  corporations, headquarters location, the South.

Risk, Finance and North Carolina’s Post-Industrial Future
William Graves and Christopher Woodey, Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, UNC Charlotte.
   While innovation is generally seen as the engine of modern economic development geographers have paid scant attention to the role of finance as an element of the innovation infrastructure. This study explores the availability of venture capital (a type of finance vital to the creation of new technology-oriented firms) in North Carolina. The data reveal that North Carolina receives below average amounts of venture capital investment despite its significant knowledge and research concentration in the Research Triangle Park area. The absence of venture capital has forced the state to rely on branch-plant facilities for economic development, a situation that has compounded the capital shortage by extracting locally earned profits from the state’s economy.

Creating a Road Guide to the Cherokee Trail of Tears National Historic Trail
Dr. Kelly D. Gregg, Jacksonville State University
   In 1838, approximately 12,000 Cherokee were forcibly removed from their Southern Appalachian homeland and relocated to what is now the State of Oklahoma.  Due to poor weather, bad planning and governmental indifference, it has been estimated that between 25% and 50% died during removal or shortly afterwards.  The main route taken by the Cherokee has ever since been referred to as “The Trail of Tears”.  This route has recently been officially recognized by the Park Service as a National Historic Trail.    The official route is both poorly marked and often does not follow the actual trail.  Unlike many other Historic Trails, no guide book exists for the Trail of Tears.  This research effort was to create such a road guide.  A variety of published sources, detailed state maps and a lot of fieldwork were used to trace the Trail from Charleston, Tennessee to Tahlequah, Oklahoma.  Forty two maps paired with detailed written instructions were prepared to guide travelers along this 930 mile trip.  A short history of the Cherokee people was added to provide greater depth to the Trail experience.     

Jumping to Diffusion: Dog Agility Development in the Southeastern United States, 1990-2003
Margaret M. Gripshover (mgripsho@utk.edu), Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0925
   The first dog agility competition was held in the United Kingdom in 1978 and the sport diffused to the United States by the mid-1980s.  Dog agility is a competition in which a handler and a dog navigate against the clock through an obstacle course. Dog agility is now the fastest-growing canine sport in the US.  Every weekend, thousands of teams, each composed of a dog and a handler, compete in agility trials across the US. By 2003, competitions sanctioned by the United States Dog Agility Association (USDAA) were being held in all but seven states.  The Southeast has lagged behind other US regions in adopting USDAA dog agility.  This paper examines the diffusion pattern of USDAA dog agility trials in the US with a focus on the factors that have slowed growth of the sport in the Southeast.
   Keywords: dog agility, United States Dog Agility Association, diffusion, Southeast

The Final Frontier: Charter Schools as New Social Institutions (or Instruments?) of Gentrification
Katherine B. Hankins, University of Georgia
   Recent scholarship on gentrification suggests the need to pay attention to the geography of gentrification.  This includes acknowledging the spatial and temporal dynamics that distinguish the gentrification processes of the 1970s from those of the twenty-first century and between places like New York City and Toronto.  This paper addresses that call and suggests that scholars pay attention to the different agents and enablers of gentrification.  These include new types of gentrifiers: family-oriented, middle-class groups who have different interests and motivations from “traditional” (childless) gentrifiers.  In addition, the neoliberalization of social service provision has enabled private groups, such as middle-class gentrifiers, to transform critical social institutions in gentrifying neighborhoods.  In this paper, I explore these new dynamics in the gentrification process by examining the potential of a charter school to consolidate the economic and social transformation of an intown neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mapping Supply and Demand in Kentucky's Health Care System
Timothy S. Hare,  Holly R. Barcus, Institute for Regional Analysis & Public Policy, Morehead State University, Morehead, KY
   We analyze the geographical distribution of supply and demand in Kentucky's health care system. Our GIS database includes Kentucky's health service locations, service usage, and facility service areas. We map hospital usage by zip code zone to explore the distribution of demand for four categories of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs): circulatory, respiratory, neonatal and infant, and endocrine conditions. We mapped service locations and driving times to delineate service areas and highlight potentially underserved areas, and mapped usage for particular hospitals by the DRG categories to define hospital service areas. Service zones vary in size, flexibility, and permeability. We used tests of spatial autocorrelation to assess the spatial dependence of the data and tests of spatial clustering to identify meaningful clusters of supply and demand. Our analysis reveals gaps in service delivery in eastern Kentucky that are associated with areas of high demand. Further analysis by disaggregated DRGs and by specific hospitals is necessary to fully understand the overlap of service areas with regions of high demand that have inadequate service availability.

The Coincidence of Daily Rainfall Events in Liberia, Costa Rica and Tropical Cyclones in the Caribbean Basin
Dr. Michael Harrison, Environmental Studies Program, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA,  mharriso@richmond.edu
Dr. Peter R. Waylen, Department of Geography, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, prwaylen@ufl.edu
   The occurrence of tropical cyclones in the Caribbean and North Atlantic basins has been previously noted to have a significant effect both upon individual hydro-climatological events as well as on the quantity of annual precipitation experienced along the Pacific flank of Central America.  Employing daily precipitation records from Liberia, northwestern Costa Rica (1964-1995), and historic storm tracks of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic, it is determined that precipitation falling in coincidence with the passage of tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes, accounts for approximately 15% of average annual precipitation.  The greatest effects are associated with storms passing within 1300 km of the precipitation station, and are most apparent in the increased frequency of daily rainfall totals in the range of 40 to 60 mm, rather than in the largest daily totals.  The complexity and non-stationarity of factors affecting precipitation in this region are reflected in the decline in the number of tropical cyclones and their significance to annual precipitation totals after 1980, simultaneous to an increase in annual precipitation totals.

Land Use Change And Sinkhole Flooding in Cookeville, Tennessee
Evan A. Hart , Tennessee Technological University
   The build-up of impervious surfaces in urbanizing watersheds has been shown to increase flood magnitude and frequency.  In karst regions, sinkholes are critical constriction points through which floodwaters must pass.  Development within sinkholes and alteration of swallow hole outlets can decrease sinkhole drainage rates and increase back-up flooding.  This study examines land use change and flooding within 20 sinkhole drainage areas between 1955 and 1997 in Cookeville, Tennessee.  Many Cookeville sinkholes are not large enough in their natural state to convey annual storm events.  Increased runoff rates due to land use change, as well as the clogging of sinkholes by trash and debris, threaten to reduce sinkhole drainage rates further.  Since 1955, the percent of commercial-industrial land use in Cookeville increased five-fold, while the percent of residential land doubled.  At the same time the percent of land in pasture decreased by one-third.  Estimated runoff curve numbers indicate that absolute storm runoff has increased up to 375% for some sinkhole drainage areas.  A 1998 storm estimated to have a return interval of 15 years produced a sinkhole stage to within 3 m of a drainage divide that separates the sinkhole from a major shopping center.  Results indicate the need for more stringent regulations regarding urban development within sinkholes and for a filter system to reduce debris build-up at critical swallow holes.  

Ecological Militarization and the Changing of the Guard at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colorado
David Havlick, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Geography
   In 1942, the U.S. Army established 17,000 acres on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, as the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. In the four decades that followed, the Army and private corporations such as Shell Chemical produced hundreds of tons of chemical weapons, nerve agents, rocket fuel, incendiaries, and pesticides at this site. In 1986, bald eagles began nesting at the Arsenal, and six years later Congress re-designated the area as the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. The environmental and political changes taking place at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal hinge upon a perception that military production and environmental protection can function compatibly, a relationship that I present as “ecological militarization,” after Hajer’s theory of ecological modernization, or the mutualism of economic production and environmental protection. This paper briefly describes the trend of former military bases converting to new designations as national wildlife refuges, turns in particular to the case of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, then considers the implications of ecological militarization at the Arsenal and other sites of similar change.

Life Cycle of a Severe Eastern Kentucky Flash Flood
Christina Henry and Rezaul Mahmood, Department of Geography and Geology and Kentucky Climate Center, Western Kentucky University.
   The spring and summer in eastern Kentucky experience the highest number of days with precipitation of 25 mm or more and the highest number of reported flash flooding. Five major flash flood events occurred in eastern Kentucky during the warm season from 1990 to 2002. Of these, the flash flood event of 3-4 August 2001 was chosen for further examination. This event resulted in approximately $15 million of property damage and four casualties.
   A cold front moved through eastern Kentucky on 3-4 August, producing heavy rains and flash flooding. The atmospheric condition was characterized by moist and unstable.  There was deep pool of moisture was available from lower to middle atmosphere.  Frontal movement and potential topographic forcing created favorable conditions for convective development and subsequent flash flooding.  The authors are currently running the MM5 model to better understand meso-scale conditions.

Fate Of Sediment From A Proposed Dredge Disposal Site On The Fraser River Delta
Chris Houser1 and Philip Hill2
1Department of Environmental Studies, University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, Florida, 32514
2Pacific Geoscience Centre, 9860 West Saanich Road, P.O. Box 6000, Sidney, British Columbia, Canada, V8L 4B2. 
   Data from co-located concentration and velocity sensors are used to determine the fate of suspended sediment within an area identified as a potential site for the disposal of dredge material from the distributary Main Channel of the Fraser River.   The study focused on the mechanisms controlling sediment resuspension and the direction of suspended sediment transport in the northern section of Roberts Bank, the sandy intertidal portion of the Fraser River Delta.  Variations in the suspended sediment concentration are found to be associated with sediment advected from non-local sources and local sediment resuspended by waves.  The locally resuspended sediment is modeled using the skin friction Shields parameter (Nielsen, 1986) and is found to dominate the sediment flux at non-tidal (synoptic scale) frequencies.  Cospectral analysis reveals a residual transport of locally resuspended sediment to the SW (202o) at tidal frequencies and to the SE (124o) at non-tidal frequencies.  At the synoptic scale, wind-generated currents force the residual transport, while at tidal frequencies the residual transport is ascribed to the relative timing of storm waves with phases of the tide.   

The Mysterious Landscape of the World---Tibet
You-Zhen Hu, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
Hsiang-Te Kung, Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Memphis
   This paper covers the physical geography and cultural geography of Tibet. The emphasis is on the uniqueness of Tibetan nature and culture and the issues and critical policies of how to protect and preserve the unique physical and cultural landscape.
   Many natural and cultural uniqueness has been and is being damaged and even threatened  to be extinctive because of  the 1966-1976 Chinese Cultural Revolution, the tourist development, and the lack of awareness  and proper techniques of preservation of  natural and cultural  uniqueness.
   The paper intends to create better awareness about the preservation of its natural and cultural uniqueness, seek international participation and assistance in conserving Tibet and appeal to the world and the Chinese Government to take immediate actions to preserve and protect Tibet's landscape.
   Keywords: Tibet, geography, uniqueness, preservation, protection

Using Ndvi Differencing and Temporal Logic to Improve Land Use/Cover Classification Accuracy
Zhiyong Hu, University of West Florida
C.P. Lo, University of Georgia
   Traditional multi-spectral land use/cover classification techniques perform class assignments based only on spectral signatures without referring to temporal information, thus limiting the land use classification accuracy. This study used temporal logic latent in the relationships between NDVI changes and land use/cover changes to improve land use/cover classification accuracy in an automatic manner. Landsat TM images of the years 1987 and 1997 for Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan region were first classified into six land use types using ISODATA method: high-density urban, low-density urban, bare land, cropland/grassland, forest, and water. An NDVI difference image was derived and classified. The classified NDVI difference map was interpreted. Each class indicated certain types of land use change. Then temporal logic was applied on the NDVI difference classification map and the land use/cover maps produced from unsupervised ISODATA classification. The operation of the temporal logic successfully improved the land use/cover mapping accuracy by resolving the confusions between bare land (forest clear-cuts or fallowed land) and cropland, as well as the confusions between bare land (forest clear-cuts or fallowed land) and high- or low-density urban.

Bed Waves vs. Sediment Waves at the Basin Scale
L. Allan James, Geography Department, University South Carolina , Columbia, Ajames@sc.edu
   Large-scale, episodic fluvial sedimentation events that generate a sequence of channel aggradation followed by degradation have long been described as sediment waves.  This paper reviews a variety of names commonly applied to these waves (waves, pulses, slugs) and raises semantic and conceptual process-response issues associated with them.  The focus is on basin-scale events and misconceptions that arise from inferring total sediment load from changes in channel-bed elevation.  On this basis, ‘bed waves’ is a more accurate way to describe channel-bed elevation changes than ‘sediment waves’ which erroneously implies a direct in-phase correspondence between channel morphological response and total sediment loads.  Examples from the Southern Piedmont of out-of-phase relationships between channel-bed responses and sediment remobilization are presented.
    The production of sediment and contaminants from storage on floodplains and terraces left by the passage of a bed wave can have persistent effects on water quality, non-point source sediment loads, channel morphology, and aquatic habitat.  These effects and their causes need to be fully understood as vestiges of a past episodic sedimentation event for proper river management and restoration schemes.  

Rock Glacier Monitoring: A Method Combining Photogrammetric Techniques and GIS Measurements to Detect Flow and Assess Spatial Uncertainty
Jason R. Janke, University of Southern Mississippi, Department of Geography Box 5051, Hattiesburg, MS 39406
    Flow rates for rock glaciers in the European Alps have been monitored using photogrammetric techniques to detect a possible climatic response; however, a monitoring program has not been initiated for Front Range, USA rock glaciers.  As a result, horizontal rock glacier displacements were measured by tracking large surficial rocks on temporal orthophotos from 1978, 1990, and 1999.  Vertical change was measured by creating Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from digital stereopairs, then subtracting the raster data to detect change.  Long-term horizontal velocities ranged from 14 – 20 cm/yr on average, although uncertainty ranged from 4 – 5 cm/yr.  On average, vertical elevation changes were negligible with most rock glaciers exhibiting a slight growth or thinning (1 – 2 cm/yr).  Over shorter time scales (≈ 10 year periods), horizontal velocities have only changed by about 2 cm/yr.  Front Range rock glaciers appear to be adjusted with current climate, unlike some rock glaciers in the European Alps. 

Geographies of Cross-Border Outsourcing, Employment and Migration Patterns in the EU and NAFTA
Tamara Johnson, Christian Sellar, John Surface
Geography Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
   The European Union and North America are conducting unprecedented projects of economic integration. An example of the coordination of institutional and economic practices is policy toward outsourcing in the clothing and textile sectors, resulting in custom agreements that allow for tariff-free export and re-import of textiles. The tension between continental integration and the larger forces of globalization can be observed in responses to trade challenges from abroad.
   The textile and apparel sectors provide an excellent model for understanding the tensions of globalization at different scales. In addition, study of the industrial geographies of textile and apparel production will act as a model for spatial exploration of the relation between the migration of people and the migration of firms through outsourcing. This paper aims to examine the reconfiguration of the textile and apparel sectors in light of the Outward Processing Trade in the EU and Special Access Program in North America, how they are influencing local employment patterns and what the possible outcomes are for these changing regional economies.

Describing Water Quality in Urban Watersheds using the Chemical Perturbation Index
Brooks Alan Jolly, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Department of Geography, Knoxville, TN 37996-0925, bjolly@utk.edu
   Watershed management, while dependent on science and engineering, is a social process that requires the inclusion of local citizens and community alliances.  I investigated the effectiveness of the Chemical Perturbation Index (CPI) as a water quality monitoring tool for use by community organizations.  I tested the ability of the CPI to describe changes in the water quality at 15 sample sites located in three mixed-use urban watersheds in Knoxville, Tennessee. Total impervious area and HSPF simulation results were used as indicators of water quality to rank the ‘expected’ water quality for each sample site and determine if the CPI rankings followed the expected relationships between water quality and landscape variables.  Analyses indicate that the CPI is responding to environmental variables and is perhaps more responsive than methods that rely exclusively on land surface characteristics such as impervious surface.  Due to the low cost involved and ease of use I believe the CPI can be a valuable tool for interpreting water quality data gathered during community watershed projects.

Manufacturing performance and situation: the case of two machine tool sectors
Ronald V. Kalafsky, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Charlotte, NC 28223
   The machine tool (MT) sector is central to most manufacturing processes and plays a pivotal role in industrial development. This paper examines the performance and characteristics of the Japanese and US MT industries. Particular emphasis is placed upon comparing the manufacturing environments in each country, as these are often critical to an industry’s success. Within recent decades, the US and Japanese MT sectors have followed divergent paths. Japanese producers are among the most innovative and have weathered a long period of decreased domestic demand, while US firms are facing another period of reduced orders and potential restructuring. The paper concludes with a discussion of future challenges facing the industry.

Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Tropical Storm and Hurricane Strikes from Texas to Maine.
Barry D. Keim, Robert A. Muller, and Gregory Stone, Louisiana State University  
   This paper analyzes 103 years of tropical storm and hurricane strikes at 45 coastal locations from Brownsville, TX to Eastport, ME.  Three hot spots for activity are evident, South Florida, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and the North-Central Gulf Coast.  Geographical and temporal patterns of tropical activity are examined.  The 1920s through the early 1950s were hyperactive in South Florida, and then in North Carolina in the 1950s and again in 1990s.   A more steady rate of occurrence occurred along the northern Gulf Coast.   Return periods of tropical storm strength systems or greater range from a frequency of once every three years on the average in southeast Texas, southeastern Louisiana, southern Florida from Fort Myers around to Palm Beach, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Return periods up to 13 years occur in northern New England.  Hurricane return periods range from 5 years in southern Florida to 103 years, where locations only experienced only one strike through the period of record, while severe hurricanes range from 15 years to 103+.

Constructing a Canadian National Identity: Conceptual Explorations and Examples in Newfoundland Music
Sara Beth Keough, University of Tennessee
   The construction of identity, especially a national identity, has no set formula or rules. Rather, identities are constructed differently for each individual or group.   Castells’ s typology of identities—legitimizing, resistance, and project-- provides three categories into which struggles to achieve identity may be positioned. These categories were found to be useful as I explored the expressions of Newfoundland’s identity mirrored through its music.  I describe how the lyrics of five popular music songs from Newfoundland draw on unique aspects of the island’s culture and geography, and how Canada as a whole might use Newfoundland’s example in their quest to define a Canadian national identity.

Climatic Competitive Index
Dr. Ted Klimasewski, Jacksonville State & FOX6
   Climatic competitive index (CCI) emphasizes dominance, as well as margin of climatic change, unlike any other approach in climatic analysis. CCI borrows a competitive index from political elections, replacing climate data with voting data.  CCI is applied to the Black Belt of Alabama where the dominant temperatures between 1970 and 2002 are in the realm of coldness by a slight margin. Coldest decade is 1970’s, with the 1980’s being a transition decade into the warmer 1990’s and 2000’s. Small cities located in the core of the Black Belt are dominated by coldness; whereas, large cities on the periphery are classified in the realm of warmness.  CCI looks as though it might be a way to resurrect a dinosaur, that is, the Koppen climate system. 

A Climatologically “Perfect Storm” and Extensive Woodland Mortality in the Pacific Northwest
Paul A. Knapp, Georgia State University
Peter T. Soulé, Appalachian State University.
   In mid-Autumn 2002 an exceptional cold spell affected much of the interior Pacific Northwest with minimum temperatures averaging 13° C below long-term means (1953-2002).  On October 31st, minimum temperature records occurred at 98 of the 106 recording stations with records lowered in some locations by 9°C.  Calculation of recurrence intervals shows that 50 percent of the stations experienced a 500+ year event.   The synoptic conditions responsible were the development of a pronounced ridge over western Canada and an intense low centered in the intermountain West. The cold spell occurred near the end of the growing season for the ecologically critical and dominant tree species of the interior Pacific Northwest, western juniper, and followed an extended period of severe drought.  In spring 2003, it became apparent that the cold had caused high rates of tree mortality and/or canopy dieback in a species remarkable for its longevity and resistance to climatic stress. The cold event altered western juniper dominance in some areas, and this may have long-term impacts on water budgets, fire intensities and frequencies, animal species distributions, and inter-specific competition among plant species. 

Imagining Community in Economic Development: A Case Study of Durham, NC
Jonathan Lepofsky, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
   This paper uses a case study of a state-sponsored economic development zone in Durham, North Carolina to ask: how is community simultaneously written into and out of such development practices?  This study draws upon research on Durham’s State Development Zone (SDZ), one of 60 such zones authorized by North Carolina to direct investment in high poverty areas and connect anti-poverty strategies with economic growth and community betterment.  This paper uses secondary data, archival resources, and interviews with stakeholders to explain the SDZ program, examine how the SDZ has been implemented in Durham, and discuss the ways in which community exists (and doesn’t exist) within the discursive framework used to identify needs and execute development strategies.

The Frontier Nursing Service of Hyden, Kentucky:  Preliminary Considerations
Elizabeth J. Leppman, Saint Cloud State University.
   The Frontier Nursing Service (F.N.S.), founded by Mary Breckinridge in 1925, brought modern nursing, midwifery, and other medical services to one of Appalachian Kentucky’s remotest and poorest regions. The F.N.S. met the challenges of providing modern medical services in such a region were legion by fitting its organization to the situation.  It set up headquarters and built a hospital at Hyden, seat of Leslie County. From there, six outlying centers, staffed by resident nurse-midwives, extended the outreach of the hospital to an area of 800 square miles.  While the midwives’ skills cut the infant mortality rate by a third, they still faced problem pregnancies and infant deaths.  A comparison of centers in northern and southern Leslie County shows a correlation between negative outcomes and inability to pay for services, suggesting economic distress as a partial cause. 

The Effects of European Land Use Practices on the Vegetation of Mediterranean Chile
Ben Logan and Lisa Kennedy, Department of Geography,  Virginia Tech
   Ecosystems and human social systems arguably combine more intimately in the Mediterranean Basin than anywhere else on earth.  For the past ~10,000 years, humans have set fires to clear forests for crops and grazing, profoundly influencing the vegetation.  Vegetation in the Basin has been considered well-adapted to human disturbance, until recent significant increases occurred.  This paper reviews land use practices in the Mediterranean Basin and how those practices have altered vegetation dramatically, when abruptly transported to a similar landscape in central Chile. 
   Central Chile is unique among the world’s five Mediterranean-type regions in that it lacks a history of frequent fires during dry seasons.  Summer lightning is rare, so few fires were ignited until Europeans arrived in Mediterranean Chile.  Most species of Mediterranean Chile lack the genetic advantageous responses to frequent fires found in species of other Mediterranean regions. Post-European vegetation has changed from woodlands to savannas. Plantations of exotic trees are sources of invasive species, which are usurping habitat from natives. Future research will involve monitoring fires and species invasions with remote sensing and GIS.

Coercing Silence: Nationalism and the Editorial Cartooning of 9/11
Mark Long, Department of Political Science, College of Charleston, longm@cofc.edu
Chris Lamb, Department of Communication, College of Charleston, lambc@cofc.edu
   Nationalism is an exacting political creed that demands absolute loyalty.  It is one of the most salient political facts-of-life in the modern world and its pervasiveness means that it commands absolute loyalty in times of crisis.  The 9/11/2001 attacks on the United States were just such a time of crisis and, in effect, absolute loyalty to the US nation was very much in evidence in their aftermath.  The reactions of US political cartoonists to the 9/11/2001 attacks and those of readers of their work underline the power of nationalist sentiment.  This paper defines nationalism before exploring how nationalism conditioned cartooning of 9/11/2001.  It posits that cartoons resonated with the nationalist public mood immediately after 9/11, but that when cartoonists began to stray from nationalist depictions of 9/11 and its aftermath, the US reading public was quick to anger at less than absolute loyalty to the US nation on the part of these commentators.  The paper is based on extensive collections of cartoons from fall and winter 2001 and beyond.  Significantly, the paper makes use of interviews with cartoonists and theorists of cartooning, and these complement analysis of the images and texts themselves and allow for deeper probing of the cartooning of 9/11/2001 and it aftermath.  The cartooning of 9/11 exposes the pervasive and coercive nature of nationalism in the US.
   Key words: nationalism, political cartoons, 9/11

Greater Louisiana Connections & Conjunctures: Placing New Orleans in Time-Geographic Perspective
Kent Mathewson, Department of Geography & Anthropology, Louisiana State University.
   New Orleans offers an opportunity for extending the time-geographic project to the scale of whole cities. This paper looks at New Orleans’ shifting rôle as the northern metropole within the Circum-Gulf & Caribbean realm and its former pride-of-place as the “Southern Metropolis,” and its shifting relations with a vast interior hinterland.  Within this hourglass configuration, New Orleans and its environs, were long the narrows that regulated passages – cultural, commercial, demographic, and political – between the Americas’ Mediterranean and North America’s heartlands. Using 1803 New Orleans as the time/space focal point, and taking a series of decadal looks at fifty-year intervals before and since, we can plot some of these points and patterns of stasis and change.  The resulting map is barely a sketch, but its outlines suggest a dual face formed by myriad cultural and related exchanges.  It is not just the face of Janus, monitoring time, past and future, it is also a geographical visage, mediating movements, both ancient and modern, from Canada to the Caribbean and increasingly beyond.

The Co-Production of Livelihoods and Land Use Change
Brent McCusker, West Virginia University, Department of Geology and Geography.
   Studies in the causes of land use and land cover change often determine a series of “driving” forces that lead from an individual or household decision to a pattern in the landscape. This study broadens “driving forces” into pathways of change by examining the influence of livelihood systems on land use decision making. Livelihood and land use decisions are co-produced, it is argued, rather than resulting from mechanistic cause-effect relationships. The study draws on recent research in South Africa to substantiate the claim of co-production. Quantitative and qualitative methods are engaged to evidence the core arguments.

The Caribbean Tourism Industry: Scales Of Spatial Clustering
Mark M. Miller, University of Southern Mississippi
   Industrial clustering has emerged as a leading theory for research in, and especially the professional practice of, regional economic development today.  Relatively little research literature applies this theory to the tourism industry, but it widely informs tourism development policy-making across the US and internationally.  In the greater Caribbean region, cluster theory is incorporated in strategic tourism planning for countries including Cuba and Costa Rica.  Basic concepts of tourism clustering may be found elsewhere in the region.  This paper argues that cluster theory provides an important and productive framework for tourism development research and policy analysis in the Caribbean region, across a wide range of spatial scales.  This region is highly dependent on the tourism industry, and the cluster perspective may help encourage region-wide cooperation and coordination in tourism development efforts.  The paper draws from the available research literature, practitioner documentation, and the author’s 25 years of professional development practice and research fieldwork in the greater Caribbean region.

The Farm Lime Kiln In Southwest Virginia
John T. Morgan, Emory & Henry College
   The lime kiln remained an essential element of the landscape in some sections of southern Appalachia until the 1930s.  Farmers burned limestone in kilns primarily to convert the rock into agricultural lime which was spread on fields to improve crop yields.  Burnt lime was also used in production of mortar that was used in masonry work, and lime was the principal ingredient in making whitewash, a paint substitute applied to houses, outbuildings, and fences.  Lime’s chief agricultural function is to raise alkalinity levels and lower soil acidity, but numerous other benefits are derived from liming such as an increase in friability of clay soils.  The enhanced texture of clay allows water to pass through the soil more readily and thus reduces the danger of soil erosion.  Burnt lime has been replaced by ground lime in the region, and the lime kiln today is a relict feature that is threatened with extinction.  The decline of the farm lime kiln is indicative of other cultural, economic, and technological changes taking place in the region during the 1930s and 1940s, and the decline in lime burning signaled that southern Appalachian farming was becoming less self-sufficient and more integrated into the economy and culture of the broader region.

From Rio to Pernambuco: Locating Rural-Urban Spaces of Community in “Central Station”
Joseph Palis, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
   Central Station provides insight into Brazil through the two characters’ (Dora and Josue) journey from Rio de Janeiro to the northeast as correlative to the urban-rural dichotomy. The urban spaces of Rio de Janeiro highlight its inherently chaotic urban politics while the pristine nature countryside of the northeast (Bom de Jesus do Norte) serves as a counterpoint to the squalor of the city. Salles’ depiction of the uniqueness and specific geographies of the rurality of Brazil’s interior towns emphasizes the country’s folkloric traditions. The visual representations of Rio de Janeiro in Central Station is a critique on modernity and consumerism. The cramped setting and the urban swarm show that the family and a sense of community cannot thrive in this Darwinist place. In contrast to the dissonant sounds and dull colors of Rio de Janeiro, the small rural communities of Sertao and Pernambuco and the northeastern towns of Bom de Jesus do Norte are in lush colors and images denoting the uncorrupted Brazil. Once the city is left behind, the northeastern journey not only presents a clearer view of the world but the characters that Dora and Josue encounter along the way share a deep connection and solidarity to the land they inhabit. Central Station fictionalizes urban and rural spaces by creating characters to represent these spaces. Dora facilitates the reunion of Josue and his long-lost brothers thereby forging solidarity in the fraternal rather than patriarchal relationships. Josue’s Biblical-named brothers Moises and Isaias are builders and carpenters symbolizing the rebuilding of the country.

Comparative Accuracy in Four Civil War Maps of the Shenandoah Valley: A GIS Analysis
Dr. Brooks C. Pearson, Geography Program, Department of Geosciences, State University of West Georgia
   This study compares the accuracy of four maps available to Union and Confederate officers during the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign of the American Civil War.  It examines historical maps of the Valley of Virginia by the following cartographers: James W. Abert; Hermann Böÿe and Lewis von Buchholtz; Jedediah Hotchkiss; and Franz Kappner.  Both simple and three-tiered sinuosity measures are derived for reference points along study map representations of the Shenandoah river system.  These data are then statistically compared to corresponding sinuosity data from USGS topographic quadrangles to identify the relative accuracies of the historical maps.  This paper offers evidence to refute the common historical assumption that Hotchkiss provided Maj. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson with terrain intelligence which was far superior to that available to his Union opponents.  It also demonstrates that Civil War topographical engineers were more successful at mapping those regions which their armies controlled.
   Keywords: GIS; historical cartography; American Civil War–  mapping; Shenandoah Valley Campaign; James W. Abert; Hermann Böÿe; Jedediah Hotchkiss; Franz Kappner

An Investigation of May 2, 2002 Flash Flood of Buchanan County, Virginia
Jessica S. Phillips, Rezaul Mahmood.  Department of Geography and Geology and Kentucky Climate Center, Western Kentucky University
   On May 2, 2002, the passage of a frontal system and associated precipitation resulted in severe flash flooding in southwestern Virginia between the hours of 2:15 pm and 1:00 am on May 3,  2002.  Buchanan County, the northernmost county of this area, experienced the most severe effects of this event.  Situated in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the topography of Buchanan County was unable to adequately absorb the precipitation of over 114 mm.  Damages totaled over $25 million and two deaths were reported.
   The evolution of the synoptic scale meteorological setting associated with this flash flood event was examined from the time period of two days prior to one day following the event.  Atmospheric conditions at 500, 700, and 850 mb were closely examined in order to thoroughly understand the causes of this event.  The analyses show synoptic and meso-scale conditions were highly favorable for a heavy precipitation event that occurred throughout the southwestern Virginia area.  This eventually resulted in severe flash flooding.

Constructing Feminist Topographies in Central Appalachia and South Africa: A Conceptual Framework for Comparative Research
Amy D. Pratt, West Virginia University
   This paper presents a conceptual framework for conducting comparative feminist research concerning the livelihoods of women who head households in West Virginia, Central Appalachia, and Limpopo, South Africa.  The paper begins by briefly highlighting the comparative study and discusses the socioeconomic history and context of the two regions and women’s particular livelihood strategies.  The conceptual framework, presented in the second part of the paper, is rooted in political economy and materialist perspectives and utilizes topographical analysis, as developed within feminist geography.  This framework illustrates the importance of interrogating the multiple and interrelated economic, social, and political structures and processes occurring at household, regional, and global scales that affect women’s abilities to ‘make do’ in rural parts of the world today.  In addition, it develops a strategy for connecting women’s livelihood issues and strategies across the boundaries of race, class, ethnicity and place through a geographical analysis.  This framework encourages feminists to theorize about the common global and local processes that impact women economically thus contributing to the development of a transnational feminist praxis. 

From Avondale to Winton Place: African-American Population and Median Household Income in Cincinnati Neighborhoods, 1960-2000
Kevin N. Raleigh, University of South Carolina
   April 2001 was a turning point in race relations in Cincinnati, Ohio: what was previously viewed as conjectural incidents of racial tension became unquestionably concrete immediately after the shooting death of a young African-American man by a Caucasian policeman. Furthermore, Cincinnati’s division into 52 distinct neighborhoods, whose residents are strongly and associatively identified by these spaces, became cognitively demarcated along racial lines due to profuse riot activity, exacerbated by media coverage that consistently described African-American neighborhoods as poverty-ridden slums and ghettos. So as to understand a geography of intolerance and to verify the validity of such allegations, this research reintroduces distinctions between slums and ghettos, and endeavors to confirm if media claims linking poverty and racial concentration are justified based on local geographies. This preliminary effort compares median household income against racial concentration for Cincinnati’s neighborhoods for the past five census periods, and outlines additional quantitative and qualitative factors that are being investigated in order to further understand the development, maintenance and explanation of a recent and tangible example of a geography of conflict.

Inter-Annual Variability In Pollen Dispersal And Deposition On The Tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap
Carl A. Reese, University of Southern Mississippi
   Comparison of surface pollen collected from the Quelccaya Ice Cap in 2000 and 2001 reveals significant inter-annual variability in the dispersal and deposition of pollen on the ice cap.  Samples collected in August of 2000 are dominated by Plantago, Alnus, and Urticaceae/Moraceae pollen, while samples collected from June 2001 are dominated by grass pollen and fern spores.  Using discriminant analysis, the ice cap samples were also compared to a network of surface samples from the central Andes.  Results show inter-annual differences in pollen provenance, and may suggest that climatic variables (e.g. ENSO) influence this process.  Key words: biogeography, ice-core palynology, Quelccaya ice cap, Peru, pollen dispersal.   

The Social Costs of Tourism Development: Jineteros in Havana, Cuba
Matthew J. Reilly, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
   Since the beginning of 1990s, the Republic of Cuba has been engulfed in a period of tremendous social and economic upheaval.  To be sure, in order for the regime to survive its current economic crisis, the Cuban government has been compelled to make concessions to market capitalism.  As a result, international tourism in Cuba, previously associated with the evils of capitalism, is now at the forefront of Cuban state policy.  Cuba’s economic crisis, coupled with the influx of foreign tourists, gave rise to disconcerting new forms of jineterismo(prostitution and street hustling).  Jineteros are the meeting point between the growing informal economy and the flourishing tourist industry.  The restructuring of the Cuban economy, with the development of international tourism and the increasing growth and significance of the informal economy has lead to changes in social forces as profit incentives and the inequality in income distribution have caused the re-emergence of class stratification in Cuba.  The officially illegal, but tacitly sanctioned informal economy of jineteros represents and embodies these contradictions and the ambiguity of the current system.

Landscapes With Low Sun – Morning Or Evening?
Peter J. Robinson, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
   Scenes of sunrise and sunset have long been a tradition in Western art.  However, it is not always clear which is which.  Meteorologically, in near calm conditions thin stratus should dominate the early morning, decaying cumulus the evening.  This hypothesis was tested using 97 landscapes around Rome, Italy painted by Claude Lorrain (1604/5 – 1682). Although his clouds were somewhat less well observed than were the surface features, unsurprising since the pictures predated the scientific study of clouds by over 200 years,  morning and evening were clearly differentiated.  The cloud types were largely consistent with the meteorological hypothesis,  and thus contributed to the overall veracity of the painted scene.

A Mineral Magnetic Assessment of Urban Sediment Sources
Dan Royall, UNC-Greensboro
   The long-term transition from agricultural land uses to current rapid growth in urbanized land area across the Piedmont Province underscores the need for a better understanding of urban watersheds. The often highly visible impacts of urban flood regimes on channel stability and sediment budgets have received much recent attention. Studies of the qualities of upland water and sediment from distributed sources in urban watersheds may be no less important, yet information on sources and their travel characteristics is difficult to acquire. In this paper I present information regarding the magnetic properties of sediment from a variety of urban surfaces. Urban surfaces exist in various states of weathering, and may accumulate residual sediment, particulates emitted from various combustion sources, and the products of metal corrosion from machinery including cars. If these may be identified as distinctive fluvial sediment sources within the urban environment, their presence may be used to study urban sediment budgets more fully, and also to better understand associated water pollutants. At least two prior studies have related the content of heavy metals in suspended sediment in urban runoff to the magnetic properties of the sediment.

Core-periphery Relations and Separatism in the Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua
Luis Sánchez, Florida State University
   This paper analyzes how and why the current patterns of core-periphery relations in Nicaragua are impacting the resurgence of grassroots separatist feelings among the indigenous and other communities in the two Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua.  It identifies the existence and level of separatist feelings among the population of the two Autonomous Regions and the reasons underlying why those feelings may be present and even resurgent. Interviews were conducted in the two Autonomous Regions of Nicaragua (RAAN, RAAS) during December 2003 and January 2004.  Two sets of interviews, involving 181 respondents, were carried out. 
The findings indicate that separatist sentiments are present among the people of the Atlantic Coast.  Cultural identity is driving the creation of the conditions for the rise and resurgence of separatist feelings among the population of the two Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua.  Popular perception of the current situation in the Atlantic Coast is being formulated on ethnic differences deeply attached to the territory.

Potential Tourist Scarcity and Sustainable Tourism Development: Ghana’s Community-based Ecotourism Sites
Sarah Schwartz, University of South Carolina at Columbia
   Numerous discussions have addressed the issue of possible threats to sustainable tourism development.  However, the majority focus on a single foil: the negative impacts of an overabundance of tourists (e.g. Honey 1999; Gössling 2001).  While valid, the threat that excessive tourist numbers pose to sustainable tourism development represents only one possible scenario.  Though seldom discussed, the sustainability of many tourism destinations, particularly those in rural areas of developing nations, are susceptible to tourist dearth as well as tourist glut.  Through a discussion of community-based ecotourism sites Ghana, this paper explores a number of often overlooked factors that have the potential to leave communities around the world without sustainable tourism industries as result of tourist shortages rather than excesses. 

Mapping the Economics of Access: IT Usage For Writing Instruction in Middle and Secondary Education
Bradley A. Shellito, Youngstown State University
Carl Whithaus, Old Dominion University
   This paper examines the available computing resources of high schools and middle schools in three cities of South Hampton Roads, VA  (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Portsmouth) to acquire information about student use and access of computers for educational purposes.  A phone survey of high schools and middle schools in the region yielded information regarding use and access of computer equipment for Instructional Technology used with writing instruction within the schools.  The locations of the schools were then mapped using Geographic Information Systems, and socio-economic information of each school district boundary was collected.  GIS was used to analyze the data at the census tract level for each school district boundary used in the study.  From there, analysis was performed to search for correlations between factors such as income level with technological access within schools.

A Spatial Analysis of Habitat for Humanity Homes in Americus, Georgia
Christa Smith, Clemson University
   This paper analyzed the spatial arrangement of Habitat homes in Americus, Georgia from 1976-2004. A quadrat analysis was used to determine if Habitat homes are distributed in a scattered, clustered or uniform pattern and what (if any) impact federal monies have had on Habitat’s building strategies in this community. It is believed that federal subsidies dramatically altered Habitat’s approach to site selection. During the initial phases of the program, the site selection process was determined by private land donations and the organization’s ability to replace or renovate dilapidated structures scattered throughout Americus. By the mid-1980s, both monetary and land donations decreased, and Habitat agreed for the first time to accept federal monies for its housing mission. Federal dollars made it possible for the Americus affiliate to develop large-scale “Habitat neighborhoods” which led to pronounced clustering of Habitat homes in the least expensive and least-sought after areas of the city. Decisions on the number of houses Habitat could provide often took precedence over location, thus Habitat was more likely to opt for volume over the quality of the site.

Erosion control and hurricane protection: The Isabel experience at Virginia Beach
Grant R. Sorrell, Department of Geography
Gary A. O’Dell, Government and History
Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky
   This paper compares erosional impact of hurricanes for shorelines where significant investment has been made in preventative engineering, against those where such investment has not been made. The Erosion Control and Hurricane Prevention Project at Virginia Beach, Virginia, represents an investment of more than $120 million and was completed in 2002.  Major features of this project were construction of a concrete-capped seawall/boardwalk and replenishment of the shoreline with sand sediments obtained offshore.  The landfall of Hurricane Isabel on September 18, 2003, at a point on the Outer Banks 180 kilometers south of the city provided a test of the effectiveness of this project.  According to COE estimates, the project prevented about $82 million in damages.  Little damage was done to the beach by the hurricane, although severe erosion was experienced at unprotected shorelines throughout the region, including those farther from the storm than Virginia Beach.  The Virginia Beach case study indicates that significant short-term benefits may be derived from large shoreline engineering projects of this nature.

Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Tornado Path Direction
Philip W. Suckling, University of Northern Iowa
   From a hazard mitigation perspective, knowledge about tornado path direction can be useful when deciphering the safest location within a structure, or when attempting to use a vehicle as a means of escape even if ill-advised. Common perception is that tornadoes travel in paths from the southwest quadrant of directions towards the northeast. This study examines path directions for 2,006 tornadoes that occurred across the central and eastern United States during the seven-year period 1996-2002. At the national scale, most tornadoes do travel from the SW, WSW and W directions. However, significant seasonal and regional variations are found. A more westerly or northwesterly path origin prevails during late spring and summer in central and northern areas of the country. Since most tornadoes in the North Central region occur in late spring and summer, tornadoes in this region travel in paths dominantly from the W, WNW and NW directions. It is essential that these seasonal and regional variations in tornado path directions be noted when developing recommendations for tornado hazard mitigation.

Are Dual-Earner Households A Constraint For Integrating Job/Housing Balances Concepts in Urban And Transport Policy?
Selima Sultana, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina—Greensboro
   That dual-earner households can be limited in their ability to choose a residential location near their workplace and thereby contribute to longer commuting times in metropolitan areas is a prominent argument against the concept of job-housing balance as a transportation policy for reducing traffic congestion.  Drawing on a 5% PUMS dataset for the Atlanta Metropolitan Area in 2000, this paper is one of the first attempts to highlight the extent to which the future growth of dual-earner households may shape the commuting patterns of American cities. Using cartographic methods, analysis of variance and multivariate statistics, this research empirically challenges the conceptually dominant assumptions of dual-earner households’ commuting behaviors, and confirms that the generalization cannot be made that the aggregate average commute of married couple dual-earner households necessarily is longer than that of single-earner households.  In fact, after controlling for all forms of socioeconomic factors in the analysis for both types of households, this paper directly suggests that the average commute of single-earner households significantly exceeds that of dual-earner households in metropolitan Atlanta. This research also indicates that the wives in both types of households commute shorter than their husbands, but wives in dual-earner households commute slightly longer than wives in single-earner households.  In contrast, overall husbands’ commuting times are significantly shorter in dual-earner households compared to husbands in single-earner households.

WAIF-FM: A Case Study In Community Radio's Place In A Globalizing Mediascape
William Church Terry, University of South Carolina
   The concentration of radio station ownership and the priority that stations place on content at national and global scales has led to deterritorialization and a sense of place-lessness at the local scale. As an alternative to these homogenizing forces, community radio has proven itself to be an alternative medium that allows citizens to construct their own local media space on terms determined by themselves. This paper is an attempt to relate how WAIF 88.3 FM, an all-volunteer community radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio is meeting the needs of the local community. The paper concludes by noting the relevance of the WAIF case study for broader issues of media control, content, and scale.

The Lifetime Of Stone: Methodological And Theoretical Considerations
Alice V Turkington, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506, USA
   While spatial variability in rock weathering may be examined in the context of micro-environmental conditions or subtle variations in material properties, differing rates of decay are more difficult to explain or predict. Apparent heterogeneity in weathering might, in fact, be created by differing rates of stone response to environmental stresses, in that each stone is at a differing location along a ‘decay pathway’ leading ultimately to destruction.
   Extrapolation of observations of weathering of rock samples under controlled laboratory or exposure trial conditions is problematic due to methodological and theoretical considerations. Samples tend to be small, unconfined, with sharp edges and without surface topography. Experimental conditions are often extreme, unrepresentative of ‘real’ weathering environments and unique. There are also theoretical issues that prevent simple linear extrapolation of observed stone decay across scales: the episodicity of processes; the inconsistent response of stone decay systems; the inherent complexity of systems. Predictive capabilities may be enhanced by recognition of the nonlinear nature of weathering systems and by better understanding of the aging curve of particular stone types and environments.

Geographic History Repeating Itself? :  An Examination of the post-World War II Discourse Surrounding Regional Geography
Charles H. Wade, Louisiana State University
   In the history of academic geography, debates have surged concerning regional geography as both a method of geographical research and pedagogy.  Whereas regional geography dominated the discipline in the first half of the twentieth century, since the mid-1950s, controversy ensued concerning the contributions that regional geography made (and makes) to the advancement of the discipline (Johnston 1997: 44, 101).  This paper examines some of the discourse from the 1950s to the present surrounding the debate on regional geography as an integral part of the discipline and some of the patterns evident from this discourse.  It is beyond the scope of this paper to provide an exhaustive review of these debates, but examples of work and opinions by geographers from representative times are provided and framed in their respective historical contexts.  I argue that despite the waxing and waning of regional geography as an ideological and pedagogical philosophy, it persists in the discipline and will likely remain an embedded feature of geography for many years to come.

The Creation of a Labor Migration: Central American Workers in the Delmarva Poultry Industry
Johnathan Walker, James Madison University
   Immigrant worker interviews are used to collect background information and determine the means by which large numbers of laborers from Mexico and the Central American states of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala have come to arrive and settle into employment in the poultry processing plants on the Delmarva Peninsula.  Previous research has concluded that workers found employment along long distance seasonal agricultural migration routes and elected to stay.  Findings of this research indicate that one poultry processing company played an active role in introducing Hispanic workers to processing plant employment in the area, which later developed into a large scale migrant network based labor migration.  As a result of this action, Hispanic labor now dominates employment in poultry processing in the region.  Early investigation of the root causes of migration deflect the role of migrants and can shed light upon the role of producers in the creation of migration streams.

Do Voting Technologies Discriminate Against Southern Democrats and Minorities?
Barney Warf, Dept. of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL  32306, bwarf@coss.fsu.edu
   In the exceedingly narrow presidential election of 2000, widespread concerns surfaced that votes were not being counted accurately, especially among ethnic minorities that tend to vote Democratic.  This paper examines major voting technologies, their advantages and disadvantages, and the significance of residual ballots (overvotes and undervotes) in the South during the 2000 presidential election.  It explores three fundamental questions:  1) Do voting technologies tend to favor one political party over its rivals? 2) Do voting technologies tend to favor one ethnic or racial group over another? And 3) Do voting technologies favor urban areas over rural ones?  The empirical results consistently deny the existence of any of these biases. 

Segmentation for Improved Classification Accuracy of Individual Species in a Closed Canopy, Deciduous Forest
Timothy A. Warner, Geology and Geography,
James B. McGraw and Rick E. Landenberger, Biology
West Virginia University
   Six classifications of a multispectral digital aerial image were undertaken to test various methods of grouping and classifying pixels for mapping individual species.  Image segments were generated by using a minimum cost path algorithm to connect tree shadows.  The test site is a closed canopy, deciduous forest in West Virginia.  The accuracy of an aspatial maximum likelihood classification was 68.5%, compared to 74.0% for classification using the mean vector of the segments identified with the minimum cost path algorithm, and 78% when the most common class present in the segment is assigned to the entire segment.  Multispectral classification of the multispectral data using the field-mapped polygons of individual trees as segments produced an accuracy of 82.3% when the mean vector of the polygon was used for classification, and 85.7% when the most common class was assigned to the entire polygon.  A moving window-based post-classification majority filter produced an intermediate accuracy value, 73.8%.  Post classification using the most common class within the tree segments was thus the most effective classification method.

Evaluating the Effects of Individual and Neighborhood Characteristics on Commuting Distance: A Multilevel Analysis
Joe Weber, Department of Geography, University of Alabama
   Travel behavior has long been conceptualized as the outcome of both individual or household characteristics and location within the urban environment, but research has generally been focused on individual or household variables. In the past decade this has changed, in part because of recent interest in using urban design to attempt to modify travel behavior.  The effects of residential characteristics on commuting time will be examined in this paper, using disaggregate data for the Portland, Oregon, Metropolitan area.  Multilevel modeling is used, allowing variables representing individual and household socioeconomic factors and urban design to be disentangled.  Commuting variations resulting from variability in the population (compositional effects) from those resulting from differences between areas (contextual effects) can therefore be distinguished. The results show that a single level regression model is adequate for explaining commuting times within Portland.  Although neighborhood characteristics are significant influences on commuting time, the effect of these characteristics does not vary among neighborhoods within the Portland metropolitan area.

NAFTA and the Blurring of Borders: International Nurse Recruitment in Chapel Hill, NC
Henrietta Williams, UNC Dept. of Geography
   The current nurse shortage in the United States stands out with several distinguishing factors, namely the aging of nurses, the general workforce shortages in ancillary professions and support labor, and the global nature of healthcare. In the early 1990's, as a cost cutting strategy, there was an increased use of unlicensed support staff.  However, these models have failed due to increasing patient circumspection, the concerns over medical errors, and the declining numbers of support personnel (Nevidjon, B., Erickson, J 2001).  The United States has focused on international recruitment as the panacea to this problem, instead of attracting more nurses in the U.S. with a higher wage and increased benefits.  As a result, many U.S. health departments are employing nurse recruitment agencies such as CoreMedical to fill the nursing shortage (CBS NEWS.com - 60 minutes).  Transnational flows of labor demonstrate the unevenness of health economies and effects of globalization.  Moreover, treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have liberalized flows of trade, goods and labor between Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., thereby complicating labor markets. This exploratory research project seeks to address the following questions.  How do hospitals recruit nurses since implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994?  Why do some hospitals actively recruit nurses internationally?  Throughout this study I shall examine two hypotheses: 1) Hospitals recruit nurses internationally as a cost-effective strategy, for example the cost of training experienced international nurses may be significantly lower than the cost of training recent American nurse graduates in North Carolina; and 2) Hospitals recruit nurses internationally for political reasons since these nurses are less likely to unionize and are unfamiliar with American labor systems, thereby preventing political alliances and unionization. 

Using Nighttime Light Image for Urban Area Mapping and Population Estimation ---A Proposal for Case Study in South Carolina
Charlie H. Zhang, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina
   The superior capabilities of the U. S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime satellite imagery have made it a distinctive data source for mapping urbanized areas and the estimation of population at different geographical scales. Literature on the application of nighttime light imagery for urban area mapping, population estimation, and human activity assessment was reviewed. In comparison to the conventional census data, the night satellite imagery provides an alternative way for the investigation of urban sprawl and population distribution. Issues and methods regarding to the interpretation and classification of nighttime imagery were addressed. A proposal of a case study of South Carolina utilizing the DMSP-OLS nighttime light imagery was designed at last.
Key words: DMSP-OLS nighttime satellite imagery, urbanized area mapping, population estimation.

An Unique Culture of Naxi Ethnic Group in Yunnan, China
Wen-Xiu Zhou and Hsiang-te kung, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Memphis TN.38152, wzhou@Memphis.edu
   This paper will describe and discuss the life of aminority ethnic groups in Dali, and Lijiang Yunnan Province, China. The focus will be on the discussion of the treasure house of China, which is regarded as human being’s cradles because there are some Yun mou Ape-man’s fossils and some dinosaur’s fossils discovered, and Yunnan is an area in kinds of culture with so many ethnic minority peoples living in the province that provides outsiders with their traditional songs and dances as their fairs and festivals are also interesting and splendid. Especially the life style of  Naxi or Mosuo ethnic minority group in Yunnan Province .The Naxi or Mosuo ethnic group will be described here only because  of  their traditional and strange life style are kept so well in that region. Including art and literature, costumes and their language or called Dongba culture. They even have the matriarchal system society that might be very rare in the world.
   Keywords: Culture, Landscape, Yunnan, Naxi. Mosuo Ethnic ,Minority ,Dongba,    

Last updated Oct. 13, 2004,  by AJames