Towards Proactive Wildlife Health – Global Insights on Conservation from the Wildlife Conservations Society’s Wildlife Health & Health Policy Program

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Wildlife Health & Health Policy Program, thefirst of its kind, evolved from the Field Veterinary Program begun in 1989. We work at the interface of wildlife health, domestic animal health, and human health and livelihoods, all as underpinned by the state of environmental stewardship. It is at this interface where the opportunities for infectious disease spread, environmental pollution and other disruptions to critical ecosystems are greatest, and where proactive approaches to ecosystem health can optimize benefits for all. Our program has grown to address important conservation issues impacting landscapes, seascapes and species around the world, including those related to Ebola virus disease, avian influenza, foot and mouth disease as it relates to cross-sectoral land-use planning, lead poisoning up food chains, canine distemper in Amur tigers, emerging zoonotic disease threats to human health, and policy-relevant quantification of relationships between environmental degradation and impacts on public health. As we try to work 'upstream' to address health-related challenges that limit conservation success, our toolbox includes research, training, education and outreach, the creation of enabling environments for addressing intersectoral conflicts, and sociopolitical engagement at a range of scales

Metaphor and inquiry

In this paper, I address the relationship between metaphor construction and the educational practice of inquiry. I argue that metaphor construction is a subspecies of inquiry. When we create metaphor, we engage in inquiry, which furthers inquiry. I draw upon contemporary metaphor theory and academic literature to explore contemporary uses of metaphor in education and the process of metaphoric comprehension. I then detail the process of metaphor production. This process is then explored in light of its relationship to the inquiry process as described in three seminal texts regarding education and inquiry. I discuss further implications of the relationship between metaphor and inquiry and call for further research.Curriculum and Instructio

Peer crowd-based targeting in E-cigarette advertisements: a qualitative study to inform counter-marketing.

BACKGROUND:Cigarette lifestyle marketing with psychographic targeting has been well documented, but few studies address non-cigarette tobacco products. This study examined how young adults respond to e-cigarette advertisements featuring diverse peer crowds - peer groups with shared identities and lifestyles - to inform tobacco counter-marketing design. METHODS:Fifty-nine young adult tobacco users in California participated in interviews and viewed four to five e-cigarette advertisements that featured characters from various peer crowd groups. For each participant, half of the advertisements they viewed showed characters from the same peer crowd as their own, and the other half of the advertisements featured characters from a different peer crowd. Advertisements were presented in random order. Questions probed what types of cues are noticed in the advertisements, and whether and how much participants liked or disliked the advertisements. RESULTS:Results suggest that participants liked and provided richer descriptions of characters and social situations in the advertisements featuring their own peer crowd more than the advertisements featuring a different peer crowd. Mismatching age or device type was also noted: participants reported advertisements showing older adults were not intended for them. Participants who used larger vaporizers tended to dislike cigalike advertisements even if they featured a matching peer crowd. CONCLUSION:Peer crowd and lifestyle cues, age and device type are all salient features of e-cigarette advertising for young adults. Similarly, educational campaigns about e-cigarettes should employ peer crowd-based targeting to engage young adults, though messages should be carefully tested to ensure authentic and realistic portrayals

Classification of Coastal Communities Reporting Commercial Fish Landings in the U.S. Northeast Region: Developing and Testing a Methodology

The National Marine Fisheries Service is required by law to conduct social impact assessments of communities impacted by fishery management plans. To facilitate this process, we developed a technique for grouping communities based on common sociocultural attributes. Multivariate data reduction techniques (e.g. principal component analyses, cluster analyses) were used to classify Northeast U.S. fishing communities based on census and fisheries data. The comparisons indicate that the clusters represent real groupings that can be verified with the profiles. We then selected communities representative of different values on these multivariate dimensions for in-depth analysis. The derived clusters are then compared based on more detailed data from fishing community profiles. Ground-truthing (e.g. visiting the communities and collecting primary information) a sample of communities from three clusters (two overlapping geographically) indicates that the more remote techniques are sufficient for typing the communities for further in-depth analyses. The in-depth analyses provide additional important information which we contend is representative of all communities within the cluster