Family migration and mobility sequences in the United States

Significant changes in family composition in the past quarter-century raise important questions about life-course outcomes embedded in these family changes, especially in relation to the migratory and mobility patterns of individuals and families. The classic distinction between long-distance/employment and short-distance/housing-related moves may be eroding. Patterns of movement appear much less dichotomous and more diverse as family structures become more diverse. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics this study shows that the previous research, which suggested relatively simple links between long-distance and short-distance moves, is an over-simplification. Moreover, there is much more unintended movement at both migratory and mobility scales suggesting the economic models of employment migration may be missing important family dynamics in the migration mobility process.children, family migration, households, life course, moving intentions, residential mobility, sequences

Idealised simulations of cyclones with robust symmetrically-unstable sting jets

Idealised simulations of Shapiro-Keyser cyclones developing a sting jet (SJ) are presented. Thanks to an improved and accurate implementation of thermal wind balance in the initial state, it has been possible to use more realistic environments than in previous idealised studies. As a consequence, this study provides further insight in SJ evolution and dynamics and explores SJ robustness to different environmental conditions, assessed via a wide range of sensitivity experiments. The control simulation contains a cyclone that fits the Shapiro-Keyser conceptual model and develops a SJ whose dynamics are associated with the evolution of mesoscale instabilities along the airstream, including symmetric instability (SI). The SJ undergoes a strong descent while leaving the cloud-head banded tip and markedly accelerating towards the frontal-fracture region, revealed as an area of buckling of the already-sloped moist isentropes. Dry instabilities, generated by vorticity tilting via slantwise frontal motions in the cloud head, exist in similar proportions to moist instabilities at the start of the SJ descent and are then released along the SJ. The observed evolution supports the role of SI in the airstream’s dynamics proposed in a conceptual model outlined in a previous study. Sensitivity experiments illustrate that the SJ is a robust feature of intense Shapiro-Keyser cyclones, highlighting a range of different environmental conditions in which SI contributes to the evolution of this airstream, conditional on the model having adequate resolution. The results reveal that several environmental factors can modulate the strength of the SJ. However, a positive relationship between the strength of the SJ, both in terms of peak speed and amount of descent, and the amount of instability occurring along it can still be identified. In summary, the idealised simulations presented in this study show the robustness of SJ occurrence in intense Shapiro-Keyser cyclones and support and clarify the role of dry instabilities in SJ dynamics

Building and Sustaining Connectedness to One’s Musical Creativity and Spirit

While journeying through the Critical and Creative Thinking Program I became more deeply aware of the choices and circumstances that colored my engagement in the fields of musical performance and music education. Through the modeling of and participation in reflective practice, I began to see my experiences from new and varied perspectives. In using self-evaluation, I gained a clearer understanding of my own reflective processes and began to apply this knowledge to exploring my musical engagement and creativity. It was through a self-reflective exploration of my own creative process that I discovered a number of experiences that had steered my course in a particular direction. Each of these experiences, however, also contributed to my path in that they were missing important elements that would allow for a more integrated experience to take place. These discoveries inspired me to explore the creative process of other musicians and artists in order to see where all of our experiences crossed. To start, this paper outlines my self-assessment of my involvement in music and the creative process. I have chosen to reveal this first as I feel it will give the reader an understanding of how I came to the conclusions I have about my own personal experiences and subsequently, how they led me to explore the experiences of other musicians. My own reflective and creative engagement taught me that having an internal connection to the self is essential in carrying out these activities. As I found this inner focus to be both a necessary skill and one of the missing elements in my educational experiences, I felt it was necessary to find out if this was indeed an important part of the creative process and if so, how other artists handled this internal, reflective aspect of creativity. This examination led to the discovery of parallels between my own creative blocks and the blocks of other artists, as well as tools we all could use to help eliminate or prevent such blocks and become more attuned to our creative self. My research led me to conclude that the various elements that were missing from my experiences were important factors in promoting healthy musical and creative engagement. Incorporating these facets on a personal level through self-study or a formal learning experience will help ensure creative longevity for any artist. An artist needs to recognize the internal aspects of their creative process, and also learn how to navigate through the phases of their process. In addition, artists need to recognize and remove creative blocks in order to sustain their work and promote creative growth. Reflective practice that supports these activities needs to be explored and should become part of the artist’s path towards manifesting their creativity

She's the four-leaf clover in the city Katrina turned over : the historical Sister Gertrude Morgan and her post-Hurricane Katrina specters

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on November 13, 2009).Thesis advisor: Dr. Richard J. Callahan, Jr.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.In the 1960s and 1970s, Sister Gertrude Morgan, artist, musician, street preacher and prophet, lived and ministered throughout the city of New Orleans. Through her artwork, music, preaching, and literal interpretation of the apocalyptic books of the Bible, she placed herself and New Orleans within the biblical text, playing a significant role in the coming apocalypse. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has seen the emergence of multiple Sister Gertrude specters. The historical Sister Gertrude is the inspiration for these Sister Gertrude specters, but ambiguous relationships exist between the historical Sister Gertrude and each post-Hurricane Katrina specter. Each of the specters pulls at a specific element of Sister Gertrude's life, work, and/or image. The four specific specters explored in this thesis were created by: Philadelphia DJ King Britt, the New York Times, commemoration efforts, and Preservation Hall owner Benjamin Jaffe. The tensions inherent in each of these specters cannot be understood without their comparison to the historical Sister Gertrude. Despite these tensions, the historical Sister Gertrude and her specters remain connected. Today's specter creators' search for authentic New Orleans by adapting Sister Gertrude runs parallel to Sister Gertrude's efforts to make New Orleans sacred through her religious worldview. The process happening in both cases is similar. In the concluding chapter, the Sister Gertrude specters are examined in light of the New Orleans rebuilding process.Includes bibliographical references

Sting jets in extratropical cyclones: a review

This paper reviews the current state of knowledge of sting jets in extratropical cyclones. Sting jets were formally identified in 2004 by the pioneering work of Keith Browning. Reviewing this and subsequent studies, we define the sting jet as a coherent air flow that descends from mid-levels inside the cloud head into the frontal-fracture region of a Shapiro-Keyser cyclone over a period of a few hours leading to a distinct region of near-surface stronger winds. It therefore lies above the cold conveyor belt during some stage its life, but, at least in some cases, descends to reach the top of boundary layer ahead of the cold conveyor belt. It is not attributed to a specific mechanism in this definition. We conclude that it is likely that a continuum of sting jet descent and speed-up mechanisms exists. At one extreme is balanced descent partly associated with frontolysis in the frontal-fracture region. More horizontally small-scale and stronger frontolytic descent may occur associated with weak stability to slantwise convective downdraughts. Instability to slantwise convective downdraughts may occur in some systems, leading to multiple slantwise convective downdraughts associated with the release of conditional symmetric instability and even, possibly, symmetric instability. The global climatology of sting jets and the interaction between the atmospheric boundary layer and sting jets are revealed as specific areas where more research is needed. Finally, we describe eight myths and misunderstandings that exist in the current literature with the aim of guiding future research into the sting jet phenomenon

Using the Man9(GlcNAc)2 – DC-SIGN pairing to probe specificity in photochemical immobilization

We demonstrate the expected preference of an immobilised oligosaccharide Man(9)(GlcNAc)(2) upon a 96-well photochemical array, for its known receptor, the cell-surface lectin Dendritic Cell-Specific ICAM3 Grabbing Nonintegrin (DC-SIGN) when compared to immobilised competing monosaccharides

Using adult mosquitoes to transfer insecticides to Aedes aegypti larval habitats.

Vector control is a key means of combating mosquito-borne diseases and the only tool available for tackling the transmission of dengue, a disease for which no vaccine, prophylaxis, or therapeutant currently exists. The most effective mosquito control methods include a variety of insecticidal tools that target adults or juveniles. Their successful implementation depends on impacting the largest proportion of the vector population possible. We demonstrate a control strategy that dramatically improves the efficiency with which high coverage of aquatic mosquito habitats can be achieved. The method exploits adult mosquitoes as vehicles of insecticide transfer by harnessing their fundamental behaviors to disseminate a juvenile hormone analogue (JHA) between resting and oviposition sites. A series of field trials undertaken in an Amazon city (Iquitos, Peru) showed that the placement of JHA dissemination stations in just 3-5% of the available resting area resulted in almost complete coverage of sentinel aquatic habitats. More than control mortality occurred in 95-100% of the larval cohorts of Aedes aegypti developing at those sites. Overall reductions in adult emergence of 42-98% were achieved during the trials. A deterministic simulation model predicts amplifications in coverage consistent with our observations and highlights the importance of the residual activity of the insecticide for this technique

So near and yet so far: Harmonic radar reveals reduced homing ability of nosema infected honeybees

Pathogens may gain a fitness advantage through manipulation of the behaviour of their hosts. Likewise, host behavioural changes can be a defence mechanism, counteracting the impact of pathogens on host fitness. We apply harmonic radar technology to characterize the impact of an emerging pathogen - Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) - on honeybee (Apis mellifera) flight and orientation performance in the field. Honeybees are the most important commercial pollinators. Emerging diseases have been proposed to play a prominent role in colony decline, partly through sub-lethal behavioural manipulation of their hosts. We found that homing success was significantly reduced in diseased (65.8%) versus healthy foragers (92.5%). Although lost bees had significantly reduced continuous flight times and prolonged resting times, other flight characteristics and navigational abilities showed no significant difference between infected and non-infected bees. Our results suggest that infected bees express normal flight characteristics but are constrained in their homing ability, potentially compromising the colony by reducing its resource inputs, but also counteracting the intra-colony spread of infection. We provide the first high-resolution analysis of sub-lethal effects of an emerging disease on insect flight behaviour. The potential causes and the implications for both host and parasite are discussed