UMBC College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Dean's Office

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http://hdl.handle.net/11603/12901
From visual arts to economics to psychology, from ancient studies to media & communication studies, and from Asian Studies to American Studies, our College spans the disciplines, the centuries, and the globe. True to the liberal arts mission, we ask questions fundamental to human existence: Who are we? Where have we been? What matters? Through diverse, challenging programs of study, with countless opportunities for research, creative work, internships, and other co-curricular activities, our students develop skills and knowledge that prepare them for a variety of careers and a lifetime of thoughtful citizenship and leadership in a complex world.

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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    New methods for quantifying the effects of catchment spatial patterns on aquatic responses
    (Springer, 2023-07-24) Weller, Donald E.; Baker, Matthew; King, Ryan S.
    Context Previous studies developed distance-weighted regression to describe how land use effects on aquatic systems attenuate with arrangement of source areas within catchments. Objectives We clarify and extend the conceptual foundations of this approach, enhance the spatial and statistical methods, and provide new tools to interpret the results. Methods We derive the framework from first principles to resolve conceptual issues with how weighting is applied to source area versus total area, and we formalize the requirements for an ideal weighting function. We quantify the spatial distributions of land areas in a way that integrates with model fitting. We adapt non-linear optimization to simultaneously fit regression and weighting parameters. We quantify the spatial distribution of source effects with arrangement and document how different weighting functions alter that distribution. Results To verify their utility, we applied these methods to a published analysis relating polychlorinated biphenyls in fish to developed land use in catchments. We identified a stronger distance-weighted model and more completely characterized the effects of weighting on where aquatic impacts originate. Conclusions Our methods enable more comprehensive analyses of the effects of spatial arrangement to better inform a wide range of scientific investigations and applications. Our methods can relate almost any spatially distributed source or driver to an integrated response at a point or along a boundary; and alternate hypotheses about the effects of pattern or proximity on processes can be tested with alternative weighting functions. New applications will generate additional weighting functions that enhance the general approach.
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    UMBC humanities faculty receive NEH fellowships for research into “the why and how of our past”
    (UMBC News, 2023-02-15) Duque, Catalina Sofia Dansberger; Musgrove, George Derek; Patton, Elizabeth; Jacob, Preminda
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    Miniature Messages: The Semiotics of Latin American Postage Stamps
    (MIDDLE ATLANTIC COUNCIL OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, 2008) Stolle-McAllister, John
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    John Stolle-McAllister, Grounding Theory: Cultural
    (Politics and Culture, 2010-08-17) Stolle-McAllister, John
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    The Election of 1940
    (Arizona State University, 2018-04-30) Jeffries, John W.
    While the war in Europe played a significant role in the parties’ nominations for the presidential election of 1940, it had a relatively small part, and less than is usually understood, in voting.
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    World War II and the American Home Front
    (National Park Services, 2007-10) Harper, Marilyn M.; Jeffries, John W.; Tuttle, William M. Jr.; Lichtenstein, Nelson; Sitkoff, Harvard
    The purpose of the study is to identify historic places that best represent the wartime mobilization that occurred in the United States and its territories and possessions between 1939 and 1945 to assist in identifying whether any of these places should be considered for potential inclusion in the National Park System.
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    Students’ Understanding and Perceptions of Assigned Team Roles in a Classroom Laboratory Environment
    (NSTA, 2018-03-01) Ott, Laura E.; Kephart, Kerrie; Stolle-McAllister, Kathleen; R. LaCourse, William
    Using a cooperative learning framework in a quantitative reasoning laboratory course, students were assigned to static teams of four in which they adopted roles that rotated regularly. The roles included: team leader, protocol manager, data recorder, and researcher. Using a mixed-methods approach, the authors investigated students’ perceptions of the team roles and specifically addressed students’ understanding of the roles, students’ beliefs in their ability to enact the roles, and whether working with assigned team roles supported the teams to work effectively and cohesively.