On the Edge: The Role of Food-based Safety Nets in Helping Vulnerable Households Manage Food Insecurity

social protection, food based safety nets, vulnerability, food insecurity

Digital Citizenship: a Journey to Internet Safety

Students need academic tools and digital skills for proper social interactions in a digital society. Researchers Ribble and Park (2019) designed the S3 Framework which stresses the importance of developing safe, savvy, and social digital citizens. Using this framework, a series of interventions were developed for students and staff to increase the demonstration of appropriate digital literacy skills and digital citizenship. This mixed-methods study provided the opportunity for 6th-grade students to receive an additional intervention for internet safety, along with students and teachers sharing their knowledge and understanding of being safe, savvy, and social digital citizens. The goals of the research included determining the ways in which the internet safety training supported students’ perceptions of behavior and digital skills with technology; understanding how students have grown as safe, savvy, and social people; and identifying the ways in which the digital citizenship training for the staff supported their understanding of digital citizenship in the classroom. Findings indicated through teacher and student interviews, along with pre-assessment and post-assessment scores of the intervention that students know the right or safe answer when asked how to be safe online and teachers understand that digital citizenship and internet safety is an important component of technology in education. The results showed that students are not using, applying or transferring the knowledge of how to be safe or kind in the moment when a situation is presented.KEYWORDS: digital citizenship; internet safety; online safety; COVID, remote learning, digital skills, technolog

A Comparison of Multiple Regression Models to Help Predict Road Race Performance for Two Runners

As a student I start the new semester armed with my course schedule, course descriptions straight from the undergraduate catalogue, and the all-important feedback from students who have taken the course before me. Introduction to Management Science (QMB 4600) is A study of selected mathematical and statistical models used to aid managerial decision making. It sounds fairly difficult and potentially boring, but a necessary evil, none-the-less. Imagine my surprise when the subject is in fact interesting, engaging, and yes, fun. This paper presents the development and analysis of one of the cases in this course. It involves the creation of three multiple regression models from two different sources (runners) to help predict the pace in minutes per mile a runner is expected to run a five kilometer race. Students are involved in the process from the ground up, from model development to model validation, thus creating an atmosphere for meaningful learning

is Social Security Part of the Social Safety Net?

Building on the existing literature that examines the extent of redistribution in the Social Security system as a whole, this paper focuses more specifically on how Social Security affects the poor. This question is important because a Social Security program that reduces overall inequality by redistributing from high income individuals to middle income individuals may do nothing to help the poor; conversely, a program that redistributes to the poor may nonetheless be regressive according to broader measures if it also redistributes from middle to upper income households. We have four major findings. First, as we expand the definition of income to use more comprehensive measures of well-being, we find that Social Security becomes less progressive. Indeed, when we use an "endowment" defined by potential labor earnings at the household level, rather than actual earnings at the individual level, we find that Social Security has virtually no effect on overall inequality. Second, we find that this result is driven largely by the lack of redistribution across the middle and upper part of the income distribution, so it masks some small positive net transfers to those at the bottom of the lifetime income distribution. Third, in cases where redistribution does occur, we find it is not efficiently targeted: many high income households receive positive net transfers, while many low income households pay net taxes. Finally, the redistributive effects of Social Security change over time, and these changes depend on the income concept used to classify someone as "poor".

The economic feasibility of utilizing energy cane in the cellulosic production of ethanol

With an overall lack of economic information available on energy cane production, the aim of this research has been to provide some insight on the economic feasibility of producing energy cane in Louisiana as a feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production. When dealing with a non-traditional crop such as energy cane, increased uncertainty surrounding potential costs and returns can make the crop seem much less appealing to potential producers. As a high-fiber hybrid of traditionally produced sugarcane, energy cane production costs have been estimated using a standard enterprise budgeting approach developed for sugarcane, along with actual yield and fiber data from energy cane field trials. Monte Carlo simulation was performed in order to estimate energy cane costs and yields under stochastic input prices and yield levels. Breakeven yields for third through sixth stubble were calculated in order to determine the potential optimal crop cycle length that would maximize an energy cane producer’s net returns. Delivered feedstock costs to an ethanol producer were estimated along with potential processing costs in order to assess the total cost of producing cellulosic ethanol from energy cane. Overall, the average variable cost of energy cane production was about $14 per wet ton and the average total cost of producing energy cane was approximately$23 per wet ton. Energy cane yield estimates ranged from 36 to 68 tons per acre and results suggest that the optimal crop cycle length for energy cane is production through sixth stubble, or 8 years. Compared to similar economic studies for other energy crops, the findings of this study indicate that energy cane is capable of producing higher biomass yields at a lower cost. Furthermore, the results suggest that cellulosic ethanol producers utilizing energy cane as a feedstock can attain a minimum ethanol selling price between $2.00 and$2.30 if processing costs remain below $0.90 per gallon and the energy cane supply is sourced from farms within a 40 mile radius of the processing facility

Population Variation in the Mitochondrial-DNA of Two Marine Organisms: The Hard Shell Clam \u3ci\u3eMercenaria spp.\u3c/i\u3e and the Killifish, \u3ci\u3eFundulus Heteroclitus\u3c/i\u3e

The two major topics are covered in this dissertation: the integration of molecular genetic tools with applied aquacultural research and short-term evolutionary dynamics. The first study investigated the extent of geographic differentiation of native clam stocks along the U.S. east and Gulf coasts. Clam mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) demonstrated size polymorphism (16.5-19.0 kb) and restriction site heteroplasmy. Size heteroplasmic individuals occurred at a frequencies of 0-89% in clam populations. Restriction site heteroplasmy occurred in 12% of the 317 individuals assayed. Results of the study indicated that although harbouring a wealth of genetic variation, clams from northern regions were similar and lacked evidence of geographic differentiation. Northern populations exhibited high probabilities of gene identity (average I = 0.882), low percent nucleotide sequence divergence (δ = 0.003), and high levels of gene flow (average Nem = 3.6). All other populations were geographically differentiated. Phylogenetic analysis of the clam taxa Mercenaria mercenaria, M. campechiensis and M. mercenaria texana detected similar degrees of divergence between all three taxa (ranging from $\delta$ = 0.053 to 0.020), indicated that the texana group may be of multiple maternal origin, and concluded that in all probability texana deserves species distinction separate from M. mercenaria. In the second section, the effect of restricted gene flow was evaluated as a possible explanation for maintenance of morphological and gene frequency clines in killifish. Effective migration rate was concluded using mtDNA haplotype frequencies for five partially isolated populations. From Fst, Nem was estimated to be 24.09. The corresponding value from a private alleles-type analysis was Nem= 18.47. These estimates indicated a very large potential for gene flow necessitating that substantial selection pressures be invoked to account for the present-day clinal distributions in F. heteroclitus

Macroinvertebrate assemblages and water quality analysis of spring systems associated with the Pontotoc Ridge Nature Preserve, Oklahoma.

Pontotoc Ridge Nature Preserve is located in southeastern Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, 20.7 miles south of Ada. This area consists of 2,900 acres of assorted vegetation with several springs, all of which emerge from the Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer. Three springs, two located within the Nature Preserve and one on adjacent property, were surveyed during this study. Aquatic macroinvertebrates and physiochemical data were collected on a seasonal basis, every three months, beginning January 2011 and ending January 2012. With the exception of 16 dissolved oxygen readings and six orthophosphate readings, the physiochemical data meet standards that support and allow for aquatic life. A total of 127,048 individuals, representing 114 taxa, were collected throughout the course of this study. Non-hexapods, included amphipods, copepods, isopods, molluscs, playhelminthes, nematodes, and various other taxa, were the dominant macroinvertebrates present. The amphipod, Hyallela Azteca complex, was the most numerous non-hexapod as well as the most numerous macroinvertebrate, having a total of 76,529 individuals. Hexapods, represented by collembolans, ephemeropterans, odonates, plecopterans, hemipterans, trichopterans, coleopterans, and dipterans, were more diverse in terms of taxa, with a total of 93 taxa collected and identified. Of the three springs studied, Smith Spring was the most diverse with an average of 44.8 taxa, followed by Canyon Spring with an average of 32.4 taxa, and Cave Spring with an average of only 21 taxa. Canyon Spring was the most populated (84,339 individuals), followed by Smith Spring (38,837 individuals), and Cave Spring (3,873 individuals). The April 2011 collection contained both the largest number of individuals, 34,368, as well as the highest number of taxa, 74, found. Similarity indices for combined collections between springs were similar, with the average indices above 0.425. Similarity indices for comparisons between upper and lower collection sites were lower, with average indices no greater than 0.349. Species diversity values were generally under 2.0, with a few exceptions in Cave Spring and Smith Spring, having averages no greater than 1.785. The results of this investigation indicate these springs are in nearly pristine condition and they play an important role in the Pontotoc Ridge ecosystem