Black students “at promise” for high school graduation: a Black scholar identity scale

Between 2010 and 2015, Black students’ high school graduation rates rose from 67 to 75 percent (Garunay, 2016). These are notable gains; however, the national average is 83 percent, constituting an educational gap. Moreover, research indicates that Black students dropout at higher rates in ninth and tenth grade compared to students from other racial or ethnic groups (Kim, Chang, Singh, & Allen, 2015). Researchers have only partially explained graduation disparities due to narrow or deficit-perspectives (Ladson-Billings, 2007), emphasis on isolated variables rather than interrelationships (Pharris-Ciurej, 2012), the omission of variables unique to Black students’ schooling experiences (e.g., Noguera, 2003b), and limited exploration into how school context influences Black students’ perceptions of schooling or themselves and their academic and attainment outcomes (e.g., Nasir, 2012). Aligned with these recommendations and critiques, the dissertation researcher has proposed a Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)-Based Model of Black High School Students’ Graduation Promise. The model hypothesizes that Black students’ perceptions of the school context (i.e., racial school climate), relative to their racial identity, has implications for students’ beliefs about themselves (i.e., Black Scholar Identity), their capabilities (i.e., high school completion self-efficacy), and perceived outcomes (i.e., high school completion outcome expectations). Moreover, the hypothesized model postulates how those variables and associations impact students’ “graduation promise,” conversely dropout risk. The first step in testing this model and the purpose of this dissertation study was to create and assess the psychometrics of the Black Scholar Identity (BSI) scale (Gray, 2016). In the dissertation study, the researcher assessed the construct validity and reliability of the BSI (Gray) using factor analyses and the factor rho coefficient equation, respectively. The dissertation researcher conducted Pearson’s product moment correlations to assess the convergent, divergent, and external criterion validity. Confirmatory factor analyses findings suggested marginal fit and provided preliminary support for the structural validity of the second-order, 25-indicator BSI (Gray, 2016) revised model. The BSI-Revised scale (Brunson) has seven factors: Academic Goal Orientation, Academic Pride-School, Academic Prioritizing, Black Student Resilience, Academic Pride-Personal/Familial, Internal Locus of Control, and Scholar Self-Efficacy. Study findings suggested that the factors were appropriately reliable. There was also preliminary evidence for the convergent, divergent, and external criterion validity of the BSI-Revised scale (Brunson) and subscales. The dissertation researcher found a positive association between the BSI-Revised scale (Brunson) and a subscale measure of school engagement and a negative association with a subscale measure of anxiety. Moreover, parents of Black high school students with higher average scholar identity scores reported higher average grades and a higher GPA for their students. The findings have implications for future dropout research and practical implications for how school counselors and educators promote Black students’ academic success

Water Availability for Cannabis in Northern California: Intersections of Climate, Policy, and Public Discourse

Availability of water for irrigated crops is driven by climate and policy, as moderated by public priorities and opinions. We explore how climate and water policy interact to influence water availability for cannabis (Cannabis sativa), a newly regulated crop in California, as well as how public discourse frames these interactions. Grower access to surface water covaries with precipitation frequency and oscillates consistently in an energetic 11–17 year wet-dry cycle. Assessing contemporary cannabis water policies against historic streamflow data showed that legal surface water access was most reliable for cannabis growers with small water rights (m3) and limited during relatively dry years. Climate variability either facilitates or limits water access in cycles of 10–15 years—rendering cultivators with larger water rights vulnerable to periods of drought. However, news media coverage excludes growers’ perspectives and rarely mentions climate and weather, while public debate over growers’ irrigation water use presumes illegal diversion. This complicates efforts to improve growers’ legal water access, which are further challenged by climate. To promote a socially, politically, and environmentally viable cannabis industry, water policy should better represent growers’ voices and explicitly address stakeholder controversies as it adapts to this new and legal agricultural water user

Sugar Profile, Mineral Content, and Rheological and Thermal Properties of an Isomerized Sweet Potato Starch Syrup

Currently, corn is used to produce more than 85% of the world’s high fructose syrup (HFS). There is a search for alternative HFS substrates because of increased food demand and shrinking economies, especially in the developing world. The sweet potato is a feasible, alternative raw material. This study isomerized a high glucose sweet potato starch syrup (SPSS) and determined its sugar profile, mineral content, and rheological and thermal properties. Rheological and thermal properties were measured using a rheometer and DSC, respectively. Sweet potato starch was hydrolyzed to syrup with a mean fructose content of 7.6±0.4%. The SPSS had significantly higher (P<0.05) mineral content when compared to commercial ginger and pancake syrups. During 70 days of storage, the SPSS acted as a non-Newtonian, shear-thinning liquid in which the viscosity decreased as shear stress increased. Water loss temperature of the SPSS continually decreased during storage, while pancake and ginger syrups’ peak water loss temperature decreased initially and then increased. Further and more detailed studies should be designed to further enhance the fructose content of the syrup and observe its stability beyond 70 days. The SPSS has the potential to be used in human food systems in space and on Earth

Evolutionary Events in a Mathematical Sciences Research Collaboration Network

This study examines long-term trends and shifting behavior in the collaboration network of mathematics literature, using a subset of data from Mathematical Reviews spanning 1985-2009. Rather than modeling the network cumulatively, this study traces the evolution of the "here and now" using fixed-duration sliding windows. The analysis uses a suite of common network diagnostics, including the distributions of degrees, distances, and clustering, to track network structure. Several random models that call these diagnostics as parameters help tease them apart as factors from the values of others. Some behaviors are consistent over the entire interval, but most diagnostics indicate that the network's structural evolution is dominated by occasional dramatic shifts in otherwise steady trends. These behaviors are not distributed evenly across the network; stark differences in evolution can be observed between two major subnetworks, loosely thought of as "pure" and "applied", which approximately partition the aggregate. The paper characterizes two major events along the mathematics network trajectory and discusses possible explanatory factors.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figures, 1 table; supporting information: 5 pages, 5 figures; published in Scientometric

Impacts of Climate Change on Multiple Use Management of Bureau of Land Management Land in the Intermountain West, USA

Although natural resource managers are concerned about climate change, many are unable to adequately incorporate climate change science into their adaptation strategies or management plans, and are not always aware of or do not employ the most current scientific knowledge. One of the most prominent natural resource management agencies in the United States is the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is tasked with managing over 248 million acres (\u3e1 million km2) of public lands for multiple, often conflicting, uses. Climate change will affect the sustainability of many of these land uses and could further increase conflicts between them. As such, the purpose of our study was to determine the extent to which climate change will affect public land uses, and whether the BLM is managing for such predicted effects. To do so, we first conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature that discussed potential impacts of climate change on the multiple land uses the BLM manages in the Intermountain West, USA, and then expanded these results with a synthesis of projected vegetation changes. Finally, we conducted a content analysis of BLM Resource Management Plans in order to determine how climate change is explicitly addressed by BLM managers, and whether such plans reflect changes predicted by the scientific literature. We found that active resource use generally threatens intrinsic values such as conservation and ecosystem services on BLM land, and climate change is expected to exacerbate these threats in numerous ways. Additionally, our synthesis of vegetation modeling suggests substantial changes in vegetation due to climate change. However, BLM plans rarely referred to climate change explicitly and did not reflect the results of the literature review or vegetation model synthesis. Our results suggest there is a disconnect between management of BLM lands and the best available science on climate change. We recommend that the BLM actively integrates such research into on-the-ground management plans and activities, and that researchers studying the effects of climate change make a more robust effort to understand the practices and policies of public land management in order to effectively communicate the management significance of their findings