A CASE FOR SUBVENTION OF PRIVATE LANDOWNERS IN THE LOUISIANA COASTAL ZONE

The Louisiana Coastal Zone (LCZ) is experiencing an unparalleled crisis of wetland loss, most of which (75%) is occurring on private lands. This paper use agricultural conservation policy as a comparative construct in a commentary that examines the rationale and methodology of providing economic incentives to subsidize wetland restoration on private lands in the LCZ.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Leadership for Change: Insights Gleaned from One District’s Implementation of an Educational Innovation

The research reported here is extracted from a larger study aimed at describing the challenges and barriers to implementing the two way immersion (TWI) program at Stark Elementary School (a pseudonym). While Stark’s TWI program is used as the backdrop for the current discussion the perspective taken here is to examine the actions (and lack of action in some instances) of Stark’s administrators and describe how those actions impacted other stakeholders and led to challenges during the implementation process. The findings illuminate the need for leaders to gain support for proposed changes while maintaining dialogue with stakeholders and developing other to help advocate for and lead the change process. The insights offered here are relevant beyond the scope of TWI and may be applicable within various industries as well

Mothers\u27 Hand Preference During Dyadic Play Experience with Infants

Research shows an infant’s hand preference is related to the mother’s handedness (Michel, & Harkins 1988). During simple unimanual actions, Michel and Harkins (1988) found that mothers who had a strong left-hand preference had infants who had more left-hand use during reaching and unimanual actions than infants who had two right-handed parents or an infant who had a left-handed father. The purpose of this study is to examine the relation between mother and infant hand preference during complex play experience, extending beyond simple unimanual actions. Hand preference was observed for thirty-one motherinfant dyads during play experiences, across a one-year period. While video-recorded, mothers were asked to play with their infants for five minutes using a standard set of toys. Mothers’ hand actions were coded as right, left or both, for each action depending on which hand was used in an interaction with the four objects. Actions were coded if mothers engaged in the following: object play, (mother interacted with the infant using an object), construction/deconstruction (mother connected or separated the chain link toy), nonconstruction (mother utilized an object as a tool). The number of actions performed with each hand were then put into the equation (R-L)/√(R+L) in order to create a z-score of continuous hand preference. Infants’ hand preference was recorded during a play situation in which the infant was presented with several different toys that could be constructed or combined. Results showed that across all play types and visits mothers preferred to use their right hand twice as often as they used their left hand and four times more than they used hands bimanually. More mothers are right hand dominant during play, which may result in asymmetrical play experience for infants with a burgeoning hand preference. A Pearson Correlation showed no significant relation between mother and infant handedness (p = .08). Our results do not agree with previous research; this disagreement may be due to an insufficient assessment of mother handedness, which does not require the use of the dominant hand, while the infant assessment was difficult and required the skill of a dominant hand.https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/urspsych/1005/thumbnail.jp

Quantifying Sustainability in Aquaculture Production.

Despite increasing institutional focus in aquaculture, sustainability remains an amorphous and much debated concept. Little consensus has been identified on the issue beyond the general recognition that the concept should contain environmental, economic, and sociological considerations. This study addressed the specific, relevant question of whether politically diverse aquacuiture interests can collectively develop and agree on production-level goals and indicators of aquaculture sustainability. The research partitioned sustainability into its three subcategories: environmental, economic and social. This division facilitated the use of existing conventions of measurement and expression in each subcategory. Employing a modified Delphi technique, over 100 aquaculture stakeholders in the Southeastern U. S. were surveyed for the purpose of identifying and refining indicators of aquaculture sustainability. Aquaculture producers, researchers, regulators, and members of non-governmental organizations participating in a three-round Delphi survey and collectively identified 31 indicators of aquaculture sustainability. Survey participants provided 1,622 items for consideration as potential indicators in round 1. These items were condensed by similarity into 31 indicators and returned to the panel for comment in rounds 2 and 3. Non-parametric statistical analysis of the survey data indicated a high level of panel agreement by the final round of the survey. Significant levels of ordinal rank correlation were detected using Friedman\u27s randomized block design (alpha = 0.05). Increasing levels of rank convergence were detected by high values for Kendall\u27s statistic of concordance ( W∼0.65. . Indicators were arranged into preliminary sub-indices of environmental, economic, and sociological sustainability. Sub-indices were combined into an overall index based on a trigonometric approach that expresses aquaculture sustainability as the ratio of case study and optimal vectors, with a relevant scoring range of --100 to 100. The resulting model is referred to as a multi-criteria index of Delphi-assessed sustainability (MIDAS). A 50-hectare, owner operated simulation was used to initialize case studies with channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) and crawfish (Procambaraus clarkii) and (Procambarus zonagulus). Case study scores ranged from 18 to 24 for crawfish and channel catfish production, respectively. With further refinement, to index has potential for production level evaluations of aquaculture sustainability in the Southeastern United States

Inter-station correlations in annual precipitation and in annual effective precipitation

Bibliography: pages 46-47