Modeling associations between public understanding, engagement and forest conditions in theInland Northwest, USA

Opinions about public lands and the actions of private non-industrial forest owners in the western United States play important roles in forested landscape management as both public and private forests face increasing risks from large wildfires, pests and disease. This work presents the responses from two surveys, a random-sample telephone survey of more than 1500 residents and a mail survey targeting owners of parcels with 10 or more acres of forest. These surveys were conducted in three counties (Wallowa, Union, and Baker) in northeast Oregon, USA. We analyze these survey data using structural equation models in order to assess how individual characteristics and understanding of forest management issues affect perceptions about forest conditions and risks associated with declining forest health on public lands. We test whether forest understanding is informed by background, beliefs, and experiences, and whether as an intervening variable it is associated with views about forest conditions on publicly managed forests. Individual background characteristics such as age, gender and county of residence have significant direct or indirect effects on our measurement of understanding. Controlling for background factors, we found that forest owners with higher self-assessed understanding, and more education about forest management, tend to hold more pessimistic views about forest conditions. Based on our results we argue that self-assessed understanding, interest in learning, and willingness to engage in extension activities together have leverage to affect perceptions about the risks posed by declining forest conditions on public lands, influence land owner actions, and affect support for public policies. These results also have broader implications for management of forested landscapes on public and private lands amidst changing demographics in rural communities across the Inland Northwest where migration may significantly alter the composition of forest owner goals, understanding, and support for various management actions

Modelling Associations between Public Understanding, Engagement and Forest Conditions in the Inland Northwest, USA.

Abstract Opinions about public lands and the actions of private non-industrial forest owners in the western United States play important roles in forested landscape management as both public and private forests face increasing risks from large wildfires, pests and disease. This work presents the responses from two surveys, a random-sample telephone survey of more than 1500 residents and a mail survey targeting owners of parcels with 10 or more acres of forest. These surveys were conducted in three counties (Wallowa, Union, and Baker) in northeast Oregon, USA. We analyze these survey data using structural equation models in order to assess how individual characteristics and understanding of forest management issues affect perceptions about forest conditions and risks associated with declining forest health on public lands. We test whether forest understanding is informed by background, beliefs, and experiences, and whether as an intervening variable it is associated with views about forest conditions on publicly managed forests. Individual background characteristics such as age, gender and county of residence have significant direct or indirect effects on our measurement of understanding. Controlling for background factors, we found that forest owners with higher self-assessed understanding, and more education about forest management, tend to hold more pessimistic views about forest conditions. Based on our results we argue that self-assessed understanding, interest in learning, and willingness to engage in extension activities together have leverage to affect perceptions about the risks posed by declining forest conditions on public lands, influence land owner actions, and affect support for public policies. These results also have broader implications for management of forested landscapes on public and private lands amidst changing demographics in rural communities across the Inland Northwest where migration may significantly alter the composition of forest owner goals, understanding, and support for various management actions

Forest views: Northeast Oregon survey looks at community and environment

This brief reports on a survey conducted in fall 2011 as one component of the ongoing Communities and Forests in Oregon (CAFOR) project. The CAFOR project focuses on the people and landscapes of three counties in northeast Oregon (Baker, Union, and Wallowa), where landscapes and communities are changing in interconnected ways

Forest management and wildfire risk in inland northwest

This brief reports the results of a mail survey of forest landowners in northeastern Oregon conducted in the fall of 2012 by the Communities and Forests in Oregon (CAFOR) Project at the University of Colorado and the University of New Hampshire in cooperation with Oregon State University College of Forestry Extension. The mail survey--a follow-up to a telephone survey conducted for the counties of Baker, Union, and Wallowa in the fall of 2011 -was administered to understand who constituted forest landowners in these three coun¬ties and their perceptions about forest management on both public and private land, as well as risks to forests in the area and the actions they have taken to reduce those risks. The respondents indicated that they perceive wildfire as the greatest threat to their lands, and they consider cooperation with neighbors as very or extremely important for land management. Forest landowners believe public lands are managed poorly and see a greater risk of wildfire occurring on neighboring public land than on their own land. Their opinions on land management are not strongly related to background factors or ideology (for example, gender, age, political party, wealth) but may be heavily influenced by personal experience with wildfire

Concepts for Reusing Composite Materials from Decommissioned Wind Turbine Blades in Affordable Housing

The very rapid growth in wind energy technology in the last 15 years has led to a rapid growth in the amount of non-biodegradable, thermosetting fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials used in wind turbine blades. This paper discusses conceptual architectural and structural options for recycling these blades by reusing parts of wind turbine blades in new or retrofitted housing projects. It focuses on large-sized FRP pieces that can be salvaged from the turbine blades and can potentially be useful in infrastructure projects where harsh environmental conditions (water and high humidity) exist. Since reuse design should be for specific regional locations and architectural characteristics the designs presented in this paper are for the coastal regions of the Yucatan province in Mexico on the Gulf of Mexico where low-quality masonry block informal housing is vulnerable to severe hurricanes and flooding. To demonstrate the concept a prototype 100 m long wind blade model developed by Sandia National Laboratories is used to show how a wind blade can be broken down into parts, thus making it possible to envision architectural applications for the different wind blade segments for housing applications

Observations of Past Lunar Landing Sites by the D-CIXS X-Ray Spectrometer on SMART-1

D-CIXS initial observations show a first unambiguous remote sensing of calcium in the lunar regolith. Data obtained are broadly consistent with current understanding of mare and highland composition. Ground truth is provided by the returned Apollo and Luna sample sets

\u3ci\u3eJhe in Gryllus assimilis\u3c/i\u3e: Cloning, sequence-activity associations and phylogeny

The 458 amino acid sequence of a mature JHE protein from the cricket Gryllus assimilis was identified after isolating the partial cDNA sequence encoding this protein from a fat body and midgut cDNA library. This hemimetabolan JHE sequence shows over 40% amino acid similarity to the known JHE sequences of several holometabolous insects. It also includes previously determined peptide sequences for G. assimilis JHE as well as two other motifs associated with JHE enzymes in holometabolous insects. The predicted molecular weight of the protein agrees with that of the JHE previously purified from G. assimilis. Partial genomic sequence encoding the Jhe contains two large (1330 and 2918 bp) introns. No coding DNA sequence variation was observed over a 1293 bp region between selected lines differing six to eight-fold in hemolymph JHE activity. However, a 19 bp indel was found in one of the introns; the insertion was strongly associated with elevated hemolymph activity, both in the selected lines and in the F2 progeny of crosses between them. Phylogenetic analyses localised the G. assimilis JHE to a clade containing dipteran and coleopteran JHEs, with lepidopteran JHEs occurring in a separate clade

\u3ci\u3eJhe in Gryllus assimilis\u3c/i\u3e: Cloning, sequence-activity associations and phylogeny

The 458 amino acid sequence of a mature JHE protein from the cricket Gryllus assimilis was identified after isolating the partial cDNA sequence encoding this protein from a fat body and midgut cDNA library. This hemimetabolan JHE sequence shows over 40% amino acid similarity to the known JHE sequences of several holometabolous insects. It also includes previously determined peptide sequences for G. assimilis JHE as well as two other motifs associated with JHE enzymes in holometabolous insects. The predicted molecular weight of the protein agrees with that of the JHE previously purified from G. assimilis. Partial genomic sequence encoding the Jhe contains two large (1330 and 2918 bp) introns. No coding DNA sequence variation was observed over a 1293 bp region between selected lines differing six to eight-fold in hemolymph JHE activity. However, a 19 bp indel was found in one of the introns; the insertion was strongly associated with elevated hemolymph activity, both in the selected lines and in the F2 progeny of crosses between them. Phylogenetic analyses localised the G. assimilis JHE to a clade containing dipteran and coleopteran JHEs, with lepidopteran JHEs occurring in a separate clade

The Leptonic Higgs as a Messenger of Dark Matter

We propose that the leptonic cosmic ray signals seen by PAMELA and ATIC result from the annihilation or decay of dark matter particles via states of a leptonic Higgs doublet to $\tau$ leptons, linking cosmic ray signals of dark matter to LHC signals of the Higgs sector. The states of the leptonic Higgs doublet are lighter than about 200 GeV, yielding large $\bar{\tau} \tau$ and $\bar{\tau} \tau \bar{\tau} \tau$ event rates at the LHC. Simple models are given for the dark matter particle and its interactions with the leptonic Higgs, for cosmic ray signals arising from both annihilations and decays in the galactic halo. For the case of annihilations, cosmic photon and neutrino signals are on the verge of discovery.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures, minor typos corrected, references adde