Barracuda

All Products – Final


Climate future

  • Title: Source-sink Cooperation Dynamics Limit Institutional Evolution in a Group-strucutred Society
  • Abstract
  • Social change in any society entails changes in both behaviours and institutions. We model a group-structured society in which the transmission of individual behaviour occurs in parallel with the selection of group-level institutions. We consider a cooperative behaviour that generates collective benefits for groups but does not spread between individuals on its own. Groups exhibit institutions that increase the diffusion of the behaviour within the group, but also incur a group cost. Groups adopt institutions in proportion to their fitness. Finally, the behaviour may also spread globally. We find that behaviour and institutions can be mutually reinforcing. But the model also generates behavioural source-sink dynamics when behaviour generated in institutionalized groups spreads to non-institutionalized groups and boosts their fitness. Consequently, the global diffusion of group-beneficial behaviour creates a pattern of institutional free-riding that limits the evolution of group-beneficial institutions. Our model suggests that, in a group-structured society, large-scale beneficial social change can be best achieved when the relevant behaviour and institutions remain correlated.
  • Authors: Laurent Hebert-Dufresne, Timothy M. Waring, Guillaume St-Onge, Meredith T. Niles, Laura Kati Corlew, Matthew P. Dube, Stephanie J. Miller, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Brian J. McGill
  • Published by: Theme 2 on 3/23/2022
  • Access: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.211743

Computing Education, Mentoring

  • Title: Identification: A Teaching Moment for Privacy and Databases
  • Abstract
  • This learning experience helps students gain experience and proficiency with issues regarding the ethical collection and use of data. Students will gain an appreciation for the risks associated with record-level identification, where data attributes, however innocently collected, can and have been used to violate privacy and lead to discrimination against individuals and protected classes of individuals.
  • Authors: Matthew P. Dube, Rocko Graziano
  • Published by: Workforce Development, Theme 3 on 11/1/2023
  • Access: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3631985

Economic and agricultural

  • Title: Innovations through Crop Switching Happen on the Diverse Margins of US Agriculture
  • Abstract
  • Crop switching, in which farmers grow a crop that is novel to a given field, can help agricultural systems adapt to changing environmental, cultural, and market forces. Yet while regional crop production trends receive significant attention, relatively little is known about the local-scale crop switching that underlies these macrotrends. We characterized local crop-switching patterns across the United States using the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cropland Data Layer, an annual time series of high resolution (30 m pixel size) remote-sensed cropland data from 2008 to 2022. We found that at multiple spatial scales, crop switching was most common in sparsely cultivated landscapes and in landscapes with high crop diversity, whereas it was low in homogeneous, highly agricultural areas such as the Midwestern corn belt, suggesting a number of potential social and economic mechanisms influencing farmers’ crop choices. Crop-switching rates were high overall, occurring on more than 6% of all US cropland in the average year. Applying a framework that classified crop switches based on their temporal novelty (crop introduction versus discontinuation), spatial novelty (locally divergent versus convergent switching), and categorical novelty (transformative versus incremental switching), we found distinct spatial patterns for these three novelty dimensions, indicating a dynamic and multifaceted set of cropping changes across US farms. Collectively, these results suggest that innovation through crop switching is playing out very differently in various parts of the country, with potentially significant implications for the resilience of agricultural systems to changes in climate and other systemic trends.
  • Authors: Matthew M. Kling, Christopher T. Brittain, Gillian L. Galford, Timothy M. Waring, Laurent Hebert-Dufresne, Matthew P. Dube, Hossein Sabzian, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Brian J. McGill, Meredith T. Niles
  • Published by: Theme 2 on 10/15/2024
  • Access: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39374391/

Mentoring

  • Title: Breaking Down the Hierarchy: Case Study of a Novel Mentoring Model
  • Abstract
  • The Barracuda (Biodiversity And RuRal Adaptation to Climate Change Using Data Analysis) team is an NSF-funded research project comprised of multidisciplinary and cross-institutional researchers at the senior, junior, postdoctoral, postgraduate, graduate, and undergraduate levels. All team members have diverse experiences and expertise, thereby expanding the range of mentorship opportunities to all professional levels. Team CHASM (Communication Has A Special Meaning) are undergraduate and graduate researchers in the Barracuda project focused on communications research and mentorship who are leading the current mentoring evaluation study of the novel All Team Mentoring model. The full Barracuda team convenes twice annually providing updates, professional development training, project administration discussions, and planning for the next six months. Additionally, team members participate in All Team Mentoring sessions. All Team Mentoring is led by the lead PI who creates an anonymous Google Form for team members to submit questions for a discussion session. Topics have included grant-writing, academic career pros and cons, interpersonal challenges, networking, resume building, publications, conference presentations, and time management. This study evaluates the novel All Team Mentoring model, as well as Tailored Mentoring for post-doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students. The All Team Mentoring and Tailored Mentoring outcomes aim to enhance knowledge, skills, expertise, professional network, professional accomplishments, satisfaction, and interest in mentoring others. The informant population includes Barracuda Project members, who also serve as collaborative partners. The evaluation assessed personal impact and satisfaction with mentoring, including All Team Mentoring and Tailored Mentoring. Early results support positive interactions with this method. The anonymous mentoring model eliminates the traditional academic hierarchy, while making it easier to ask questions for those who may not feel comfortable doing so otherwise. This paper explores relationships between the Tailored Mentoring and the All Team Mentoring model as well as recommendations for future use and evaluations of this method.
  • Authors: Laura Kati Corlew, Michelle Brunton, Grace Freeman, Luke Kramer, Alina Rousseau
  • Published by: Theme 4 on 10/1/2024
  • Access: https://www.mentor-cmc.com/cmc/vol8no3/MobilePagedReplica.action?pm=1&folio=347#pg347

Plants and Animals, Economic and agricultural


Sociopolitical

  • Title: Using Geographic Information Systems to Assess Community-Level Vulnerability to Housing Insecurity in Rural Areas
  • Abstract
  • Research examining homelessness in rural areas has been sparse. The current study aims to expand conceptions of rural homelessness by mapping community-level risk factors related to housing insecurity. Geographic information systems (GIS) techniques were used to map the distribution of select community-level risk indicators in the State of Maine. Three methodological choices related to this process are demonstrated: (1) selection and distribution of housing insecurity risk indicators; (2) use of location quotients; and (3) use of spatial lags. After examining and mapping selected risk factors against the location of homeless service supports, four areas in Maine were identified as communities of concern for housing insecurity. Better understanding the extent and location of areas of high need that are resource poor can help service and funding agencies to plan for the more efficient and effective distribution of homeless prevention and mitigation services. Implications for research in rural areas are discussed.
  • Authors: Kristen D. Gleason, Matthew P. Dube, Elizabeth Bernier, Jennifer Martin
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 4/5/2021
  • Access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jcop.22589?domain=author&token=NDWP3QX5SHKSR7ISMJYV
  • Title: Graphical Metrics for Analyzing Disctrict Maps
  • Abstract
  • For the past several decades, political scientists have sought to understand the impact of legislative redistricting and gerrymandering on a variety of outcomes. However, traditional metrics such as compactness scores and newer metrics such as aggregated simulations impose very strong assumptions that make their use difficult. In this study, we propose a new graphical framework for analyzing districts that relaxes current assumptions while allowing analysts to focus on the choices that redistricting parties may potentially make. We then leverage the newest advances in district simulation algorithms to extend this framework to propose four new metrics. These new metrics are Edge-Cut Growth (ECG), Excess Edge (EE), and Edge per District Gain (EDG), and Internal Boundary Growth (IBG). These new metrics are then compared to several existing metrics, allowing us to test the attributes that our approach is similar to. In doing so, we demonstrate that the four new metrics are best seen as theoretical and technical advances on current metrics that focus on district geometry.
  • Authors: Matthew P. Dube, Jesse T. Clark, Richard J. Powell
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 7/19/2021
  • Access: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42001-021-00131-x
  • Title: Rural Housing Insecurity: A Case Study Comparison Across Four Rural Areas in Maine
  • Abstract
  • Stable housing is an important determinant of health equity (Swope & Hernández, 2019). Yet, there are few studies exploring housing insecurity in rural areas. In the current study, we examined the similarities and differences in housing insecure experiences across four rural areas in the state of Maine. We used a qualitative case study approach in which each of the four areas represented a case. We conducted interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders (N = 70) to better understand how housing insecurity manifested in each area. Participants discussed a variety of housing insecure experiences in their communities. However, the types and magnitude of these challenges differed across the four areas; findings indicated that rural areas are different from urban areas and from each other. That there are differing patterns of housing insecurity across rural communities has important implications for which housing policy and social service supports are most needed in each community.
  • Authors: Kristen D. Gleason, Matthew P. Dube, Jennifer Martin, Elizabeth Bernier, Jessica Gipson
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 7/1/2023
  • Access: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1386864
  • Title: Jail Incarceration across the U.S.: The Role of the Local State and Place-Based Punishment Vulnerability
  • Abstract
  • Social scientists have highlighted rising jail incarceration rates in the United States. Despite the urgency of this social problem, much is not known about it. Few studies, particularly national-level generalizable ones, have investigated how the characteristics of communities and their local governments influence jail incarceration. Yet jails are an intrinsically community-level institution, for the most part, run by county governments. In this paper, we ask how place-based community characteristics, particularly the characteristics of county governments, influence jail incarceration rates. To answer this question, we develop a theoretical framework grounded in two literatures, one on place-based punishment vulnerability and the other on the local state, including poverty governance. Our study builds from a unique data set that includes primary data collected from county governments across the country. We conduct a multivariate regression analysis with state-fixed effects, using a sample of approximately 1,400 counties, examining the extent to which socioeconomic, sociodemographic, and county government characteristics are associated with county jail incarceration rates. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between county jail incarceration and county government characteristics. We find that the highest jail incarceration rates aren’t found in the most destitute and under-resourced counties and county governments. Instead, elevated jail incarceration is found in high poverty, evangelical counties of mid-level economic health with county governments that engage in service cuts and have local leaders that engage in carceral entrepreneurship. These findings have important implications for the empirical and theoretical study of jails across the United States.
  • Authors: Sarah Walton, Linda Lobao, Matthew P. Dube
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 8/8/2024
  • Access: Pending

Spatiotemporal Data Science

  • Title: Deriving Topological Relations from Topologically Augmented Direction Relation Matrices
  • Abstract
  • Topological relations and direction relations represent two pieces of the qualitative spatial reasoning triumvirate. Researchers have previously attempted to use the direction relation matrix to derive a topological relation, finding that no single direction relation matrix can isolate a particular topological relation. In this paper, the technique of topological augmentation is applied to the same problem, identifying a unique topological relation in 28.6% of all topologically augmented direction relation matrices, and furthermore achieving a reduction in a further 40.4% of topologically augmented direction relation matrices when compared to their vanilla direction relation matrix counterpart.
  • Authors: Matthew P. Dube
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 12/24/2021
  • Access: http://204.48.17.207/index.php/josis/article/view/155
  • Title: A brief review of the evolution of GIScience since the NCGIA research agenda initiatives
  • Abstract
  • Geographical information science (GIScience) is progressively acknowledged as a scientific field based on a wide range of theories and methods that are constantly evolving. This motivates our attempt at a tentative observation of the research progress and challenges that have gone along with its gradual recognition as a domain of its own. The brief critical review presented in this paper develops an observation of such evolution. The peculiarity of our approach is that it is not based on a quantitative evaluation of the research outputs as identified by usual journal production metrics, but rather on a progressive identification of the research questions and their evolution, which the GIS academic community has been addressing over the past 30 years since the landmark NCGIA initiatives’ research agendas have largely inspired and contributed to the development of geographical information science as a field.
  • Authors: Christophe Claramunt, Matthew P. Dube
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 6/30/2023
  • Access: https://josis.org/index.php/josis/article/view/300
  • Title: Identification of Conceptual Neighborhoods and Topological Relations in Z2
  • Abstract
  • Topological relations are an essential element of spatial queries and reasoning about spatial information. The predominant model for topological relations in geographic information systems—the 9-intersection—identifies sixteen different relations between groups of pixels (called raster regions) given a set of conditions restricting the composition of the regions interior and boundary. Several of these relations are dependent on the raster region sizes to be realized. An example,‘Completely Inside’would require raster regions to be sufficiently different in size for one raster to entirely encompass the other. By developing an iterative computational model, this work generates conceptual neighborhood graphs that outlined the relationships generated between binary topological regions constrained by size, and topology. Regions are considered which range in pixel dimension from 1: 1 to 10: 10. Three hypotheses are presented: first, structural similarities exist between conceptual neighborhoods whereby rasterized conceptual neighborhoods share a similar structural framework as their continuous counterparts. Second, categorizing the relations in the resulting neighborhood graphs according to the classifications proposed by Dube et al., the continuous neighborhoods identified by Egenhofer and Al-Taha will be identified. Third, variations in the size of rasterized regions will impact the availability of topological relations and precipitate changes in potential connections generating intermittent and weak connections or persistent and strong connections.
  • Authors: Brendan P. Hall
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 5/3/2024
  • Access: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/3967/
  • Title: Conceptual Neighborhood Graphs: Event Detectors, Data Relevancy, and Language Translation
  • Abstract
  • The past thirty years of research have provided a host of advancements in the development of spatial relation sets and organizational structures by which we can consider a partial ordering of those sets. Multi-modal geofoundation models require knowledge of these types of sets and structures to provide cognitively plausible descriptive outputs when prompted by artificially intelligent tools. Conceptual neighborhood graphs are organizational structures that provide crucial insights into several relevant aspects of spatial data mining and spatial machine learning. In this chapter, we discuss mechanisms in which conceptual neighborhood graphs can provide insights that have not been leveraged in contemporary spatial information systems that provide opportunities for enhancing generative artificial intelligence both in sequential activities and in the translation of images and languages. We specifically discuss conceptual neighbors as event detection mechanisms within sequential image batches, pre-filtering mechanisms for relevant spatial data based on prepositional keywords, and spatial language translation between spoken and written languages.
  • Authors: Matthew P. Dube, Brendan P. Hall
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 2/1/2025
  • Access: Pending
  • Title: Digital Relations in Z2: Discretized Time and Rasterized Lines
  • Abstract
  • There is a voluminous literature concerning the scope of topological relations that span spaces from to , , and , and . In the case of the spaces, those relations have been considered both as conceptions of spatial relations and also those of temporal relations. Missing from that list are the set of digital relations that exist within , representing discretized time or discretized ordered lines. Discretized time plays an essential role in timeseries data and in spatio-temporal information systems where time is represented in layers of consecutive spatial rasters and/or spatial vector objects colloquially referred to as space-time cubes or spatio-temporal stacks. This paper explores the digital relations that exist in interpreted as a regular topological space under the digital Jordan curve as well as a folded over temporal interpretation of that space for use in spatio-temporal information systems. It identifies 34 9-intersection relations in , 42 9-intersection + margin relations in , and 74 temporal relations in , utilizing the 9+-intersection. This work is proposed to create opportunities for better spatio-temporal reasoning capacity within spatio-temporal stacks.
  • Authors: Matthew P. Dube, Duncan J. Picher, Timothy Waring, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Brian J. McGill
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 2025
  • Access: Pending
  • Title: Disjunction and Degradation of Composition of Qualitative Topological Relations between Simple Regions
  • Abstract
  • Composition of relations has been well studied, both in mathematics through relation algebra and in spatial reasoning through identification of qualitative sets of interest. There are many questions however that can be answered within the spatial domain that relate to the composition of disjunctions (relating to uncertain data) and the cardinality of the resultant composition (relating to gained information). This paper explores the space of disjunctive compositions using general data mining approaches to shed light upon composition holistically within the domain of qualitative spatial reasoning.
  • Authors: Matthew P. Dube
  • Published by: Theme 3 on 2025
  • Access: Pending

White Paper

  • Title: Barracuda Communication Guide
  • Description
  • Communicating the intricacies of uncertainty, especially in areas like climate change, is both a challenge and an imperative. The nuances in scientific understanding play a crucial role in how the public perceives and reacts to these issues. Eff ective dialogue among scientific professionals forms the backbone of impactful public engagement. Given the significant ramifications of topics like climate change on every facet of an individual’s life, there is a heightened need for meticulous, clear, and cautious communication. This handbook is the product of thorough research, drawing from an extensive range of social science studies and other communication guides that delve into similar areas of concern. By integrating these insights, we have curated a guide to assist professionals in their communication eff orts, addressing not only the uncertainties surrounding climate change but also other potentially divisive topics. Our goal is to combine tools, resources, and best practices to foster understanding, enhance clarity, and bridge the gap between scientific nuance and public perception. Through the strategies outlined, we aspire to propel informed discussions and nurture trust in the pivotal conversations. We hope that the tools and resources provided in this guide will prove to be useful. –Team CHASM
  • Authors: Laura Kati Corlew, Michelle Brunton, Grace Freeman, Luke Kramer, Alina Rousseau, Gwendolyn Wellman, Jacob Hastings, Heidi Toner, Isabella Moody
  • Published by: Theme 4 on 2/1/2024
  • Access: https://biobarracuda.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Barracuda-Communication-Guide.pdf