So you\u27re not a natural resources major: Teaching a general studies course focused on forest history

When compared to our undergraduate majors, students taking environmental courses to fulfill general education (or general studies) requirements have different knowledge bases, different interest levels, and different motivations for studying natural resources topics. Unlike foresters or wildlife managers or environmental scientists, typical business management, psychology, or accounting students are not inclined to memorize scientific names of X number of tree species or learn how to calculate hard mast yields per acre or care how to precipitate organic compounds from a sample solution. So how and what can we teach these students? How do these differences affect choices of appropriate teaching strategies, lecture topics, reading selections, assignment types and testing? This paper will address pedagogical issues and rewards discovered while teaching a course titled Forest History, Technology and Society, a course that fulfills a general education requirement for students from across campus. The course time frame spans from western civilization\u27s beginning until the contemporary period. Topics include an eclectic mix chosen to prompt examinations of values, perspectives, scientific understandings, and utilization alternatives affecting the status of forests at particular points throughout the span of history. This paper will examine how the interaction of that immense time frame and the eclectic range of potential topics necessitates identification of key concepts on which to focus the course. It will discuss the techniques used in designing assignments and creating examinations for its diverse student clientele with diverse interests and learning styles

Intimate Partner Violence and Women with Severe Mental Illnesses: Needs and Challenges from the Perspectives of Behavioral Health and Domestic Violence Service Providers

Women with severe mental illnesses face high rates of violence victimization, yet little is understood about the unique needs and challenges these women present to the domestic violence and behavioral health agencies that serve them. To help address this knowledge gap, focus groups were conducted with 28 staff members from local behavioral health and domestic violence service agencies. Results from this exploratory study suggest that women with severe mental illnesses who experience intimate partner violence face additional challenges that exacerbate behavioral health and domestic violence issues and put these women at greater risk for continued victimization. DV and behavioral health agency staff experience individual-, provider-, and system-level barriers to serving this high-risk, high-need population. Recommendations and implications for domestic violence and behavioral health providers are discussed

Probation Officers' Perceptions of Supervising Probationers with Mental Illness in Rural and Urban Settings

As part of a larger study of probation workload and workforce challenges in one southeastern state, this study reports the results from a statewide survey of probation officers’ experiences supervising probationers with mental illness. A total of 615 officers responded to closed- and open-ended questions about the challenges and barriers to supervising offenders with mental illness, and the responses of officers from rural versus urban settings were compared. Officers reported that probationers with mental illness are difficult to supervise and supervision challenges are exacerbated by a scarcity of mental health and substance abuse treatment resources, limited social support, and a lack of employment opportunities for this population of probationers. Officers report unique and similar challenges across rural and urban settings. This study contributes to our understanding of the challenges of supervising probationers with mental illness and informs practice, policy and research at the interface of the criminal justice and mental health systems

Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to examine implementation determinants of specialty mental health probation

Background Specialty mental health probation (SMHP) is designed to improve outcomes for the large number of people with serious mental illnesses who are on probation and/or parole. The evidence for specialty mental health probation is promising; however, little is known about the implementation challenges and facilitators associated with SMHP. To address this gap, we used the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR) to analyze 26 interviews with stakeholders representing multiple agencies involved in the implementation of SMHP. Results Results indicate a number of challenges and facilitators related to the inner setting, outer setting, implementation process, and characteristics of individuals. Conclusions Findings suggest that complex and cross-sectoral interventions are context-dependent and introduce a number of challenges and facilitators related to multiple CFIR domains. Consequently, agency administrators implementing these types of interventions should consider small pilot studies and develop implementation strategies tailored to the local implementation context

Using statewide administrative data and brief mental health screening to estimate the prevalence of mental illness among probationers

There is little published information about the measures that probation agencies in the United States use to identify individuals with mental illnesses who are under community supervision. This study used statewide administrative data to estimate and compare the prevalence of mental illnesses among probationers using officer report and offender self-report data. Prevalence estimates of mental illnesses ranged from 15 percent to 19 percent, which is consistent with prior studies that used formal diagnostic assessments. In the absence of costly and time-consuming diagnostic assessments, probation agency-developed mental health scales can aid in identifying those who might be in need of additional mental health assessment

Variation in Criminogenic Risks by Mental Health Symptom Severity: Implications for Mental Health Services and Research

Although a growing body of literature has demonstrated that justice-involved people with mental illnesses have criminogenic risk factors at similar or elevated rates as compared to justice-involved people without mental illnesses, more information about how criminogenic risks vary by intensity of mental health symptoms is needed. This information is particularly important for probation agencies who supervise the vast majority of justice-involved individuals with mental illnesses and who are increasingly implementing specialty mental health supervision approaches. To this end, this study examines the relationship between criminogenic risk and intensity of self-reported symptoms of mental illnesses among 201,905 individuals on probation from a large southeastern state. Self-report measures of symptoms of mental illnesses were categorized as low, moderate or high and criminogenic risks were compared among the following three groups: (1) those with no or low self-reported symptoms of mental illness; (2) those reporting moderate levels of symptoms; and (3) those reporting high or elevated levels of symptoms. Our findings suggest that the strength of relationships between symptoms of mental illnesses and criminogenic risks varies by type of criminogenic risk. Also, elevated symptoms of mental illness are associated with higher levels of criminogenic risks. More research about interventions that address mental illnesses and criminogenic risks is needed to inform practice and policy

Physical Health Problems Among People With Severe Mental Illnesses: Race, Gender, and Implications for Practice

BACKGROUND: Individuals with severe mental illnesses experience high rates of chronic health conditions; however, the extent to which risk of chronic physical health problems varies by race and gender among these individuals is understudied. AIMS: This study examines variations in health problems by race and gender among individuals with severe mental illnesses. METHOD: Administrative data, which included blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) values, were obtained from 603 individuals with serious mental illnesses who received integrated health and behavioral health services from a large mental health agency in the Midwest. Bivariate and multivariate statistical models were used to examine variation in physical health problems by race and gender. RESULTS: Compared with men, women with severe mental illnesses were more likely to have BMI levels indicating obesity or morbid obesity (p < .001). Compared with White participants, Black participants were less likely to have high HbA1c levels (p < .001) but were more likely to have high blood pressure (p < .001). Among race and gender groups, Black women were more likely to have high BMI (p < .05), Black men were more likely to have high blood pressure (p < .001), and White men were more likely to have high HbA1c levels (p < .01) when holding constant all other variables. CONCLUSIONS: There is evidence that types and severity of physical health problems among individuals with severe mental illnesses varies by race and gender. Replication of these results and more research is needed to ensure that health-related education and integrated health and behavioral health interventions meet the needs of individuals with serious mental illnesses

Spectral degeneracy and escape dynamics for intermittent maps with a hole

We study intermittent maps from the point of view of metastability. Small neighbourhoods of an intermittent fixed point and their complements form pairs of almost-invariant sets. Treating the small neighbourhood as a hole, we first show that the absolutely continuous conditional invariant measures (ACCIMs) converge to the ACIM as the length of the small neighbourhood shrinks to zero. We then quantify how the escape dynamics from these almost-invariant sets are connected with the second eigenfunctions of Perron-Frobenius (transfer) operators when a small perturbation is applied near the intermittent fixed point. In particular, we describe precisely the scaling of the second eigenvalue with the perturbation size, provide upper and lower bounds, and demonstrate $L^1$ convergence of the positive part of the second eigenfunction to the ACIM as the perturbation goes to zero. This perturbation and associated eigenvalue scalings and convergence results are all compatible with Ulam's method and provide a formal explanation for the numerical behaviour of Ulam's method in this nonuniformly hyperbolic setting. The main results of the paper are illustrated with numerical computations.Comment: 34 page

On the Search For Transits of the Planets Orbiting Gl 876

We report the results of a globally coordinated photometric campaign to search for transits by the P ~ 30 d and P ~ 60 d outer planets of the 3-planet system orbiting the nearby M-dwarf Gl 876. These two planets experience strong mutual perturbations, which necessitate use of a dynamical (four-body) model to compute transit ephemerides for the system. Our photometric data have been collected from published archival sources, as well as from our photometric campaigns that were targeted to specific transit predictions. Our analysis indicates that transits by planet "c" (P ~ 30 d) do not currently occur, in concordance with the best-fit i = 50 degree co-planar configuration obtained by dynamical fits to the most recent radial velocity data for the system. Transits by planet "b" (P ~ 60 d) are not entirely ruled out by our observations, but our data indicate that it is very unlikely that they occur. Our experience with the Gl 876 system suggests that a distributed ground-based network of small telescopes can be used to search for transits of very low mass M-stars by terrestrial-sized planets.Comment: currently 17pp w/Figs, 10 figures; to appear in Astrophysical Journal article December 2006 v653n