Trends in commuter and leisure travel in The Netherlands 1991-2001 - Mode choice and travel time

Data collected over recent years indicates that there has been an increase in the average distance of trips made, in the Netherlands (e.g. in 1985 the average trip made was 8.7 km, in 2000 the average trip length was 10.6 km (Harms, 2003)). This paper uses a multi-level approach to look at the micro and macro level factors that affect the travel behaviour of individuals for commuting and leisure in the Netherlands over the last 10 years. A strong influence on the travel behaviour of an individual comes from the context of the household they belong to, the household operates with the context of the residential area in which they live, and all our behaviour is affected by our temporal location. The behaviour of individuals can be considered as dependent on context, and these contextual influences can be envisaged as nested. The multi-level approach allows us to simultaneously consider the impact of individual factors (such as gender), household factors (such as household income), and municipality level factors (such as local population density) and at the same time look at trends across time in commuting and leisure travel behaviour. The advantage of the multi-level approach is that it allows a wholistic approach, where not only aggregate or individual data is used to explain travel behaviour but both levels’ explanatory contributions are included in analyses conducted.

Trends in commuter and leisure travel in The Netherlands 1991-2001 - Mode choice and travel time

Data collected over recent years indicates that there has been an increase in the average distance of trips made, in the Netherlands (e.g. in 1985 the average trip made was 8.7 km, in 2000 the average trip length was 10.6 km (Harms, 2003)). This paper uses a multi-level approach to look at the micro and macro level factors that affect the travel behaviour of individuals for commuting and leisure in the Netherlands over the last 10 years. A strong influence on the travel behaviour of an individual comes from the context of the household they belong to, the household operates with the context of the residential area in which they live, and all our behaviour is affected by our temporal location. The behaviour of individuals can be considered as dependent on context, and these contextual influences can be envisaged as nested. The multi-level approach allows us to simultaneously consider the impact of individual factors (such as gender), household factors (such as household income), and municipality level factors (such as local population density) and at the same time look at trends across time in commuting and leisure travel behaviour. The advantage of the multi-level approach is that it allows a wholistic approach, where not only aggregate or individual data is used to explain travel behaviour but both levels' explanatory contributions are included in analyses conducted

Mental Health Practitioners’ Trauma Knowledge and Self-Efficacy Post-EMDR Training

This research study examines mental health practitioners’ level of trauma knowledge and trauma treatment self-efficacy pre- and post-EMDR therapy training in Texas. The purpose is to determine if practitioners\u27 self-perception of efficacy in treating trauma and trauma knowledge will improve after completing EMDR training. The practitioner sample (N = 113) is from an EMDR trainer who conducted six EMDR trainings in Texas. Descriptive, correlational, and paired t-test statistical procedures were implemented to analyze the data for the study. The results show that practitioners’ self-perception of competence and knowledge could be attributed to their years of clinical experience treating clients with trauma. The results also show practitioners’ knowledge of trauma (pre=3.38, SD=.36; post =3.53, SD=.31 on a 5-point Likert scale) and treatment self-efficacy (pre=5.76, SD=1.98; post =7.77, SD=1.25 on a 11-point Likert scale) improved post-EMDR training with a medium effect size of .44 for knowledge of trauma and a large effect size of -1.21 for treatment self-efficacy. Therefore, EMDR therapy training improved practitioners’ knowledge of trauma and their treatment self-efficacy. The clinical implications of this study show the educational effects EMDR therapy training has on practitioners’ treatment, and based on these results, it is important to determine whether other trauma-focused trainings have similar effects

Data and Research that Matter: Mentoring School Counselors to Publish Action Research (Practitioner-Focused Research)

Data and research serve as powerful advocacy tools in highlighting the effectiveness of school counselors and school counseling programs. School counselor educators can be key mentors who support practitioners in sharing the findings of local school action research. This article focuses on four unique projects by school counselors that demonstrate specific outcomes in student achievement and the mentoring efforts in guiding the dissemination of their results. The authors discuss recommendations for school counselors and counselor educators based on the mentoring process and publishable action research projects

New parton distributions from large-x and low-Q^2 data

We report results of a new global next-to-leading order fit of parton distribution functions in which cuts on W and Q are relaxed, thereby including more data at high values of x. Effects of target mass corrections (TMCs), higher twist contributions, and nuclear corrections for deuterium data are significant in the large-x region. The leading twist parton distributions are found to be stable to TMC model variations as long as higher twist contributions are also included. The behavior of the d quark as x-->1 is particularly sensitive to the deuterium corrections, and using realistic nuclear smearing models the d-quark distribution at large x is found to be softer than in previous fits performed with more restrictive cuts.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures. Minor corrections. References added. To appear in Phys.Rev.

Valley View Farm: Main House

Prepared by the Fall 2011 Conservation of Historic Building Materials class. This historic structure report provided an assessment of present conditions, historic context, and recommendations for on going preservation of the main house located at Valley View Farm in Cartersville, Georgia. The purpose of this HSR is to provide the owners of the main house with a holistic examination of the structure and integrity of the house. Recommendations made are based on the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Treatment of Historic Properties to maximize optimal long term preservation of this National Register property.https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_heritagepreservation/1041/thumbnail.jp

Fine-root production in small experimental gaps in successional mixed boreal forests

The effects of small 10 m x 10 m experimental above-ground gaps on fine-root production for the first two years were studied in three fire-initiated stands of the northwestern mixed broad-leaf-conifer boreal forest of Quebec. The 48-yr-old forest is dominated by Populus tremuloides (Trembling aspen), the 122-yr-old forest by a mixture of P. tremuloides, Abies balsamea (balsam fir) and Picea glauca (white spruce), and the 232-yr-old forest by Thuja occidentalis (eastern white cedar) and A. balsamea, with some P. tremuloides. 40 root-ingrowth bags were installed in different locations in and around each gap (at gap center, 1 to 2 m either side of gap edge and in adjacent control plots). Half of the ingrowth bags were harvested after one year following gap creation, the other half after two years. Roots were sorted into different species grouping. Fine-root production was statistically (P < 0.05) larger in the youngest forest compared to the two older ones after one year, but not after two years. The individual species or groups of species increased, decreased or showed no change in fine-root production in gaps, but overall we did not observe a major shift in species proportion between gap and control plots after two years. Some herbs and also Taxus canadensis seemed to benefit in terms of fine-root growth from such small openings after two years. No statistical differences (P > 0.10) in total fine-root production were found among locations within and outside gaps in either year. However, there was a clear tendency for fine-root production to be smaller in gap center than in the other locations for the two younger successional forests the first year after gap creation. We conclude that small above-ground gaps (i.e. < 100 m2) do not produce a significant and long-lasting below-ground gap in terms of total fine-root production in the successional forests investigated

Transposon mutagenesis screen in <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i> identifies genetic determinants required for growth in human urine and serum

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a global public health concern due to the rising myriad of hypervirulent and multidrug-resistant clones both alarmingly associated with high mortality. The molecular mechanisms underpinning these recalcitrant K. pneumoniae infection, and how virulence is coupled with the emergence of lineages resistant to nearly all present-day clinically important antimicrobials, are unclear. In this study, we performed a genome-wide screen in K. pneumoniae ECL8, a member of the endemic K2-ST375 pathotype most often reported in Asia, to define genes essential for growth in a nutrient-rich laboratory medium (Luria-Bertani [LB] medium), human urine, and serum. Through transposon directed insertion-site sequencing (TraDIS), a total of 427 genes were identified as essential for growth on LB agar, whereas transposon insertions in 11 and 144 genes decreased fitness for growth in either urine or serum, respectively. These studies not only provide further knowledge on the genetics of this pathogen but also provide a strong impetus for discovering new antimicrobial targets to improve current therapeutic options for K. pneumoniae infections

Behavioral differences following ingestion of large meals and consequences for management of a harmful invasive snake: A field experiment

Many snakes are uniquely adapted to ingest large prey at infrequent intervals. Digestion of large prey is metabolically and aerobically costly, and large prey boluses can impair snake locomotion, increasing vulnerability to predation. Cessation of foraging and use of refugia with microclimates facilitating digestion are expected to be strategies employed by free-ranging snakes to cope with the demands of digestion while minimizing risk of predation. However, empirical observations of such submergent behavior from field experiments are limited. The brown treesnake (Serpentes: Colubridae: Boiga irregularis) is a nocturnal, arboreal, colubrid snake that was accidentally introduced to the island of Guam, with ecologically and economically costly consequences. Because tools for brown treesnake damage prevention generally rely on snakes being visible or responding to lures or baits while foraging, cessation of foraging activities after feeding would complicate management. We sought to characterize differences in brown treesnake activity, movement, habitat use, and detectability following feeding of large meals (rodents 33% of the snake’s unfed body mass) via radio telemetry, trapping, and visual surveys. Compared to unfed snakes, snakes in the feeding treatment group showed drastic decreases in hourly and nightly activity rates, differences in refuge height and microhabitat type, and a marked decrease in detectability by trapping and visual surveys. Depression of activity lasted approximately 5–7 days, a period that corresponds to previous studies of brown treesnake digestion and cycles of detectability. Our results indicate that management strategies for invasive brown treesnakes need to account for cycles of unavailability and underscore the importance of preventing spread of brown treesnakes to new environments where large prey are abundant and periods of cryptic behavior are likely to be frequent. Characterization of postfeeding behavior changes provides a richer understanding of snake ecology and foraging models for species that consume large prey

Measurement of the Nucleon Structure Function F2 in the Nuclear Medium and Evaluation of its Moments

We report on the measurement of inclusive electron scattering off a carbon target performed with CLAS at Jefferson Laboratory. A combination of three different beam energies 1.161, 2.261 and 4.461 GeV allowed us to reach an invariant mass of the final-state hadronic system W~2.4 GeV with four-momentum transfers Q2 ranging from 0.2 to 5 GeV2. These data, together with previous measurements of the inclusive electron scattering off proton and deuteron, which cover a similar continuous two-dimensional region of Q2 and Bjorken variable x, permit the study of nuclear modifications of the nucleon structure. By using these, as well as other world data, we evaluated the F2 structure function and its moments. Using an OPE-based twist expansion, we studied the Q2-evolution of the moments, obtaining a separation of the leading-twist and the total higher-twist terms. The carbon-to-deuteron ratio of the leading-twist contributions to the F2 moments exhibits the well known EMC effect, compatible with that discovered previously in x-space. The total higher-twist term in the carbon nucleus appears, although with large systematic uncertainites, to be smaller with respect to the deuteron case for n<7, suggesting partial parton deconfinement in nuclear matter. We speculate that the spatial extension of the nucleon is changed when it is immersed in the nuclear medium.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figure