The benefits of investing in others: volunteering and longevity based on analysis of obituary data

Psychology Undergraduate Research Colloquium 2012 Second PlacePrevious research suggests giving social support may be a critical component to the health benefits of social relationships (Brown, Nesse, Vinokur, & Smith, 2003). The current study aimed to investigate how giving support to others through participation in service activities relates to longevity, especially when considered with other previously significant social integration factors such as marriage and religious involvement. This study utilized two sets of obituaries coded for activity type as a novel data source. Study 1 consisted of 25 to 30 randomly selected obituaries from each of 50 major cities (n = 1310) coded for volunteer activities, religious involvement, and demographic information such as gender and education. Volunteering, religious involvement, and being female were all associated with longevity. Mention of a volunteer activity remained significant when controlling for the other variables. To explore the role of social integration in these effects, study 2 utilized obituaries (n = 805) from a two-month period in Des Moines, Iowa, which were coded for volunteerism, identical demographic factors, as well as additional social integration measures (marital status and membership in a social group organization). Results of the prior study were replicated. However, inclusion of other social integration variables reduced this effect to non-significance. These findings indicate that the effects of volunteerism on longevity are likely the result of increased social integration instead of separate effects of altruistic goals. Our study suggests using a novel methodological approach that social integration is a crucial variable for health.No embargoAcademic Major: BiologyAcademic Major: Psycholog

Offspring Sex Ratio in Double Brooding Prothonotary Warblers

Prothonotary warblers are bright, golden birds who, with their loud calls, make themselves known in wetland habitats in the spring after returning from their winter homes in the Neotropics to breed. This migratory species is important to study because of their need for these habitats and are declining in population due to the degradation of wetland environments across the western hemisphere. VCU started a project in 1987 to study prothonotary warblers including population genetics, breeding biology, and migration ecology. Since then, with the help of Richmond Audubon Society, the project has erected over 600 nesting boxes along the James River contributing to a database going back 30 years. This makes them an accessible bird to study and, with the collected information, help to better understand the causes of their declin

Beyond Sustainability: The Contractor’s Role in Regenerative System Design

Current business models employ the concept of the triple bottom line to integrate three aspects of sustainability into the organizational process: economic growth, environmental protection and social equity. This concept is evolving toward a regenerative design approach that promotes a triple top line, moving accountability to the beginning of the design process by assigning value to a variety of economic, environmental and social factors. There is an increasingly important need for proactive participation from the construction community in this new generation of sustainability efforts. Otherwise, there will be a widening gap between design and construction, in which the contractor role in sustainability is marginalized, relegated to merely minimizing end-of-project impacts rather than adding value and innovation throughout the project. This paper examines the triple top line in the context of construction projects and identifies opportunities for construction professionals to play a collaborative role in developing the next generation of regenerative facilities

University of Nevada, Las Vegas Transmutation Research Program Annual Report Academic Year 2005-2006

It is my pleasure to present the UNLV Transmutation Research Program’s fifth annual report that highlights the academic year 2005 – 2006. Supporting this document are the many technical reports and scientific papers that have been generated over the past five years. In the fifth year of our program, we saw amazing growth in the Radiochemistry Ph.D. program with a total of 12 students in the second year of the program (twice the number we anticipated in the program proposal). In the back of this issue, under Infrastructure Augmentation, you will find some news about the new academic programs sponsored by the TRP. Since our inception, the program has sponsored to their conclusion 38 M.S. and 2 Ph.D. degrees. The program supported 47 graduate students and 23 undergraduates in 6 academic departments across the UNLV scientific and engineering communities in the academic year 2005-2006. Our research tasks span the range of technology areas for transmutation, including separation of actinides from spent nuclear fuel, methods of fuel fabrication, reactoraccelerator coupled experiments, corrosion of materials exposed to lead-bismuth eutectic, and special nuclear materials protection and accountability. We continued our emphasis on molten metal technology and actinide chemistry in our enhancements to UNLV this year to build a foundation in areas that are in line with UNLV’s strategic growth and our ability to address student-appropriate research in the transmutation program

University of Nevada, Las Vegas Transmutation Research Program Annual Progress Report Academic Year 2007-2008

It is my pleasure to present the UNLV Transmutation Research Program’s seventh annual report that highlights the academic year 2007-2008. Supporting this document are the many technical reports and theses that have been generated over the past seven years. In the seventh year of our program, we continued to see growth in the Radiochemistry Ph.D. program with a total of 20 students in the fourth year of the program (we anticipated twelve in the program proposal). Since our inception, the program has sponsored to their conclusion 48 M.S. and 6 Ph.D. degrees. The program supported 53 graduate students, 11 undergraduates, and eight post-doctoral scholars in eight academic departments across the UNLV scientific and engineering communities in the academic year 2007-2008. Our research tasks span the range of technology areas for transmutation, including separation of actinides from spent nuclear fuel, methods of fuel fabrication, reactoraccelerator coupled experiments, corrosion of materials exposed to lead-bismuth eutectic, and special nuclear materials protection and accountability. We continued our emphasis on molten metal technology and actinide chemistry in our enhancements to UNLV this year to build a foundation in areas that are in line with UNLV’s strategic growth and our ability to address student-appropriate research in the transmutation program

University of Nevada, Las Vegas Transmutation Research Program Annual Report Academic Year 2006-2007

It is my pleasure to present the UNLV Transmutation Research Program’s sixth annual report that highlights the academic year 2006-2007. Supporting this document are the many technical reports and theses that have been generated over the past five years. In the sixth year of our program, we continued to see growth in the Radiochemistry Ph.D. program with a total of 13 students in the third year of the program (we anticipated eight in the program proposal). Since our inception, the program has sponsored to their conclusion 42 M.S. and 4 Ph.D. degrees. The program supported 39 graduate students, 17 undergraduates, and seven post-doctoral scholars in six academic departments across the UNLV scientific and engineering communities in the academic year 2006-2007. Our research tasks span the range of technology areas for transmutation, including separation of actinides from spent nuclear fuel, methods of fuel fabrication, reactoraccelerator coupled experiments, corrosion of materials exposed to lead-bismuth eutectic, and special nuclear materials protection and accountability. We continued our emphasis on molten metal technology and actinide chemistry in our enhancements to UNLV this year to build a foundation in areas that are in line with UNLV’s strategic growth and our ability to address student-appropriate research in the transmutation program

Integrating Knowledge for River Basin Management: Progress in Thailand

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

IWRAM: An integrated toolbox for considering impacts of development and land use change in Northern Thailand

The IWRAM Decision Support System was developed to consider economic, environmental, and sociocultural trade-offs involved with resource competition and development in the Mae Chaem catchment in Northern Thailand. IWRAM contains two modelling toolboxes utilising a nodal network structure for catchment analysis: a Biophysical Toolbox, for considering the biophysical (erosion, streamflow, crop) implications of 'painted on' land use scenarios; and, an Integrated Modelling Toolbox, which links models of household decision making with the biophysical toolbox to allow for consideration of socioeconomic and environmental trade-offs of many development and policy scenarios. This paper describes the Integrated Modelling Toolbox within the IWRAM system. Links between household decision models, a socioeconomic impacts model and the biophysical toolbox are described and results for a number of forest encroachment scenarios are demonstrated using key indicators of social, economic and environmental performance. The potential for reapplication of the modelling framework to a large number of catchment situations is also discussed. (Résumé d'auteur

Participatory natural resource management: a comparison of four case studies

This paper presents an overview of four recent participatory resource management projects carried out on three continents. The aim is to elicit from these case studies a description of participatory process structures as well as an analysis of the driving forces behind the selection of stakeholders and their involvement in management projects. The case studies represent four different process structures set up to achieve two categories of process goal. They also suggest four main drivers in the design of such structures: process goals, existing power structures, process direction and stakeholder numbers. The concept of scale of action mismatch is introduced as directly affecting two out of four studies. Such mismatches reduce the chance of achieving the participation goals (e.g. greater equity and effectiveness) of the stakeholder involvement. The consequential need for greater institutional safeguards for participation is discussed

Interviewing the Interpretive Researcher: An Impressionist Tale

In this manuscript, we describe the use of debriefing interviews for interviewing the interpretive researcher. Further, we demonstrate the value of using debriefing questions as part of a qualitative research study, specifically, one doctoral student’s dissertation study. We describe the reflexivity process of the student in her study and the debriefing data that were coded via qualitative coding techniques. Thus, we provide an exemplar of the debriefing process and the findings that emerged as a result. We believe that our exemplar of interviewing the interpretive researcher provides evidence of an effective strategy for addressing the crises of representation and legitimation for researchers and instructors of qualitative methods courses alike