Incorporating habitat distribution in wildlife disease models: conservation implications for the threat of squirrelpox on the Isle of Arran

Emerging infectious diseases are a substantial threat to native populations. The spread of disease through naive native populations will depend on both demographic and disease parameters, as well as on habitat suitability and connectivity. Using the potential spread of squirrelpox virus (SQPV) on the Isle of Arran as a case study, we develop mathematical models to examine the impact of an emerging disease on a population in a complex landscape of different habitat types. Furthermore, by considering a range of disease parameters, we infer more generally how complex landscapes interact with disease characteristics to determine the spread and persistence of disease. Specific findings indicate that a SQPV outbreak on Arran is likely to be short lived and localized to the point of introduction allowing recovery of red squirrels to pre-infection densities; this has important consequences for the conservation of red squirrels. More generally, we find that the extent of disease spread is dependent on the rare passage of infection through poor quality corridors connecting good quality habitats. Acute, highly transmissible infectious diseases are predicted to spread rapidly causing high mortality. Nonetheless, the disease typically fades out following local epidemics and is not supported in the long term. A chronic infectious disease is predicted to spread more slowly but can remain endemic in the population. This allows the disease to spread more extensively in the long term as it increases the chance of spread between poorly connected populations. Our results highlight how a detailed understanding of landscape connectivity is crucial when considering conservation strategies to protect native species from disease threats

Outcomes of the BOSS Classroom Management Program Among Adults With Intellectual Disabilities

There is a current and growing need for evidence-based practices aimed at improving the social skills of adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). Despite an abundance of research on strategies to improve the social skills of young children with ID, there is limited research on interventions aimed at improving prosocial behaviors of adults with ID. A behavioral skills training approach was used to teach frontline, direct support professionals (DSPs) to implement a classroom management strategy called the Behavioral Opportunities for Social Skills (BOSS) program with adults with ID who lived in the community. The results showed that DSPs’ delivery of behavior-specific praise statements increased after they received training in the BOSS program. Increases in the prosocial behaviors of the adults with ID were also reported after the DSPs were trained. Social validity measures indicated that DSPs liked using the BOSS program, it was easy to implement, and the program was effective. The results of this study suggest that evidence-based social skills interventions developed for children and adolescents, including classroom management strategies, can be effective in improving prosocial behaviors of adults with ID with minimal adaptions

Reliability and validity of the Student Perceptions of School Cohesion Scale in a sample of Salvadoran secondary school students

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite a growing body of research from the United States and other industrialized countries on the inverse association between supportive social relationships in the school and youth risk behavior engagement, research on the measurement of supportive school social relationships in Central America is limited. We examined the psychometric properties of the <it>Student Perceptions of School Cohesion </it>(SPSC) scale, a 10-item scale that asks students to rate with a 5-point Likert-type response scale their perceptions of the school social environment, in a sample of public secondary school students (mean age = 15 years) living in central El Salvador.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Students (n = 982) completed a self-administered questionnaire that included the SPSC scale along with measures of youth health risk behaviors based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the factor structure of the scale, and two internal consistency estimates of reliability were computed. Construct validity was assessed by examining whether students who reported low school cohesion were significantly more likely to report physical fighting and illicit drug use.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Results indicated that the SPSC scale has three latent factors, which explained 61.6% of the variance: <it>supportive school relationships, student-school connectedness, and student-teacher connectedness</it>. The full scale and three subscales had good internal consistency (r_s= .87 and α = .84 for the full scale; r_sand α between .71 and .75 for the three subscales). Significant associations were found between the full scale and all three subscales with physical fighting (p ≤ .001) and illicit drug use (p < .05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Findings provide evidence of reliability and validity of the SPSC for the measurement of supportive school relationships in Latino adolescents living in El Salvador. These findings provide a foundation for further research on school cohesion and health risk behavior in Latino adolescents living in the U.S. and other Latin American countries.</p

Real-space investigation of short-range magnetic correlations in fluoride pyrochlores NaCaCo2_2F7_7 and NaSrCo2_2F7_7 with magnetic pair distribution function analysis

We present time-of-flight neutron total scattering and polarized neutron scattering measurements of the magnetically frustrated compounds NaCaCo$_2$F$_7$ and NaSrCo$_2$F$_7$, which belong to a class of recently discovered pyrochlore compounds based on transition metals and fluorine. The magnetic pair distribution function (mPDF) technique is used to analyze and model the total scattering data in real space. We find that a previously-proposed model of short-range XY-like correlations with a length scale of 10-15 \AA, combined with nearest-neighbor collinear antiferromagnetic correlations, accurately describes the mPDF data at low temperature, confirming the magnetic ground state in these materials. This model is further verified by the polarized neutron scattering data. From an analysis of the temperature dependence of the mPDF and polarized neutron scattering data, we find that short-range correlations persist on the nearest-neighbor length scale up to 200 K, approximately two orders of magnitude higher than the spin freezing temperatures of these compounds. These results highlight the opportunity presented by these new pyrochlore compounds to study the effects of geometric frustration at relatively high temperatures, while also advancing the mPDF technique and providing a novel opportunity to investigate a genuinely short-range-ordered magnetic ground state directly in real space

Estuarine Forecasts at Daily Weather to Subseasonal Time Scales

Most present forecast systems for estuaries predict conditions for only a few days into the future. However, there are many reasons to expect that skillful estuarine forecasts are possible for longer time periods, including increasingly skillful extended atmospheric forecasts, the potential for lasting impacts of atmospheric forcing on estuarine conditions, and the predictability of tidal cycles. In this study, we test whether skillful estuarine forecasts are possible for up to 35 days into the future by combining an estuarine model of Chesapeake Bay with 35-day atmospheric forecasts from an operational weather model. When compared with both a hindcast simulation from the same estuarine model and with observations, the estuarine forecasts for surface water temperature are skillful up to about 2 weeks into the future, and the forecasts for bottom temperature, surface and bottom salinity, and density stratification are skillful for all or the majority of the forecast period. Bottom oxygen forecasts are skillful when compared to the model hindcast, but not when compared with observations. We also find that skill for all variables in the estuary can be improved by taking the mean of multiple estuarine forecasts driven by an ensemble of atmospheric forecasts. Finally, we examine the forecasts in detail using two case studies of extreme events, and we discuss opportunities for improving the forecast skill

Targetable Mechanical Properties by Switching between Self-Sorting and Co-assembly with In Situ Formed Tripodal Ketoenamine Supramolecular Hydrogels

A new family of supramolecular hydrogelators are introduced in which self-sorting and co-assembly can be utilised in the tuneability of the mechanical properties of the materials, a property closely tied to the nanostructure of the gel network. The in situ reactivity of the components of the gelators allows for system chemistry concepts to be applied to the formation of the gels and shows that molecular properties, and not necessarily the chemical identity, determines some gel properties in these family of gels

Mapping the distribution of the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) within natural forest in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo

Pangolins are the most trafficked mammals in the world and are severely threatened by poaching the loss, degradation, and fragmentation of habitat. In Malaysian Borneo, conservation initiatives for the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) are hindered by a paucity of data on their distribution and population size. Using MaxEnt niche modelling and consolidated species location data, we projected the distribution of Sunda pangolins in Sabah. Additionally, we assessed the accessibility of their forest habitats to humans to understand potential threats. Our model indicated that, as of 2015, approximately half of Sabah’s land area (39,530 km²) is suitable for pangolins, with 43% in protected forests, 38% in production forests, and 19% outside of these areas. Alarmingly, our data suggest that nearly all (91%) of these suitable habitats are relatively easily accessible to poachers. Our findings provide a state-level baseline understanding of Sunda pangolin distribution and assess potential threats in Sabah. These can inform short- and long-term conservation management plans for pangolin to safeguard this critically endangered species

Predicting Future Space Near-IR Grism Surveys using the WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallels Survey

We present near-infrared emission line counts and luminosity functions from the HST WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallels (WISP) program for 29 fields (0.037 deg^2) observed using both the G102 and G141 grisms. Altogether we identify 1048 emission line galaxies with observed equivalent widths greater than 40 Angstroms, 467 of which have multiple detected emission lines. The WISP survey is sensitive to fainter flux levels (3-5x10^-17 ergs/s/cm^2) than the future space near-infrared grism missions aimed at baryonic acoustic oscillation cosmology (1-4x10^-16 ergs/s/cm^2), allowing us to probe the fainter emission line galaxies that the shallower future surveys may miss. Cumulative number counts of 0.7<z<1.5 galaxies reach 10,000 deg^-2 above an H-alpha flux of 2x10^-16 ergs/s/cm^2. H-alpha-emitting galaxies with comparable [OIII] flux are roughly 5 times less common than galaxies with just H-alpha emission at those flux levels. Galaxies with low H-alpha/[OIII] ratios are very rare at the brighter fluxes that future near-infrared grism surveys will probe; our survey finds no galaxies with H-alpha/[OIII] < 0.95 that have H-alpha flux greater than 3x10^-16 ergs/s/cm^2. Our H-alpha luminosity function contains a comparable number density of faint line emitters to that found by the NICMOS near-infrared grism surveys, but significantly fewer (factors of 3-4 less) high luminosity emitters. We also find that our high redshift (z=0.9-1.5) counts are in agreement with the high redshift (z=1.47) narrow band H-alpha survey of HiZELS (Sobral et al. 2013), while our lower redshift luminosity function (z=0.3-0.9) falls slightly below their z=0.84 result. The evolution in both the H-alpha luminosity function from z=0.3--1.5 and the [OIII] luminosity function from z=0.7-2.3 is almost entirely in the L* parameter, which steadily increases with redshift over those ranges.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, Accepted by Ap