Friends or Foes? The Problem of South Florida’s Invasive Mangroves

A recent global review on the impacts of climate change on mangroves concluded that different regions will experience varying degrees of impacts due to the variability of expected changes in climate (shifts in precipitation, frequency and intensity of storms, droughts, sea level rise, change of ocean currents, increases in CO2 concentrations, etc.) and the variety of types and mangrove assemblages growing in these regions, including different species composition of mangrove forests. In North America and the Caribbean, these changes are dependent upon a predicted higher frequency (and intensity) of tropical storms, sea level rise, changes in patterns of precipitation, and higher temperatures. Located at the land-sea interface, mangroves in this region are expected to expand their ranges poleward (towards North Florida), or migrate into other coastal ecosystems (e.g., the Everglades), provided no natural or urban center barriers are present to prevent this expansion. If rains increase, as is anticipated, along the United States-Mexico border, mangroves may likely begin to thrive in places currently occupied by unvegetated salt flats. However, a lack of rain may also be of benefit in areas such as Louisiana where marsh diebacks have been linked to droughts, which directly increases the likelihood of mangrove migrations into these ecosystems. Given the services that mangroves provide and the legal protections that mangroves receive, it is shocking to discover that their future existence may be compromised or threatened. Certainly, the greatest threats to mangroves in Florida are from direct and indirect human impacts of development, including pollution and habitat destruction. Mangroves may also be naturally damaged and destroyed from disturbance events such as tropical storms and hurricanes. However, a new threat to native mangroves has recently emerged: the introduction of invasive mangrove species. These non-native species may threaten the ecosystem dynamics of mangrove forests and may alter the natural coastal landscape of South Florida unless eradicated

Teachers of Emergent Bilinguals: Professional Growth in the Age of Compliance

There are differing views of what constitutes teacher learning in the field of education. The case studies presented herein provide a glimpse into the professional learning lives of two elementary school teachers of emergent bilingual students in order to gain a greater understanding of how professional learning links to instructional practices. Set in a suburban public school setting in the southwest, the study incorporated the use of narrative inquiry with data consisting of interviews, observations, reflections logs, and artifacts. Data were analyzed through the lenses of the adult learning theory of andragogy and critical constructivism. The findings of this study heavily support the andragogical framework and question the value of heavy compliance demands placed on teachers. The study also sheds light on the sociocultural reality of educating emergent bilingual students and the professionalization, or lack thereof, of their teachers. Participants in this study were found to not only value the concepts espoused by the theory of andragogy as adult learners, but to also learn personally by these concepts and scaffold and sustain their own professional learning for the benefit of their students. The study concludes with ways that educational leaders can create more opportunities for teachers to sustain themselves

Group polarization and social norms on normative body weight misperception and eating disordered symptomology

Group polarization, social norms, and misperceptions of normative body weight were evaluated in sorority and non-sorority (comparison) undergraduate women at the University of Richmond. The participants completed the Eating Disorder Inventory-2, the Weight Locus of Control Scale, the Rosenburg Self-esteem Scale, the Multidimensional Body- Self Relations Questionnaire, and several self-report questions. Sorority and comparison participants significantly misperceived normative body weight. One sorority differed significantly from the other groups on misperception of normative body weight and the Eating Disorder Inventory-2. The comparison group had significantly lower scores than the three sororities on the Self-Esteem Scale. The four instruments did not significantly predict normative body weight misperception. Because the misperception of ideal body weight is so pervasive, a social norms campaign advertising normative body weight could be very successful

Assessing design options for a Nutrient Trading System using an integrated model

Water quality in many New Zealand waterways is currently declining leading to lakes and rivers being closed for contact recreation such as swimming and potentially threatening our clean, green image. Much of this decline is associated with an increase in the nutrient loss from agriculture in the surrounding catchment. Nutrient trading systems are being considered in a number of catchments across the county to restrict the nutrient loss entering the waterways and thus improve the water quality. Such a system is currently being implemented in Lake Taupo and Environment Bay of Plenty is exploring actively the use of such a system to manage nutrient loss in the Lake Rotorua catchment. Yet the design of such systems is challenging. In a collaborative effort between Motu, NIWA and GNS-Science, we are developing a spatial, stochastic, dynamic simulation model, N-TRADER to simulate the effect of different aspects of nutrient trading policy for the Lake Rotorua catchment. This model combines the economics of land use and management decision making, the functioning of temporal nutrient allowance markets and a model of nutrient flows and lags and is based on the best available empirical information on the geophysical and economic conditions for this catchment. This paper will discuss the design of N-TRADER and some of the nutrient trading system design questions that we plan to explore with the model including what is the impact of different nutrient caps and what is the impact of higher transaction costs.Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

You say goodbye, I say hello: Seeking Sustainability by Cancelling Our Credit Class

Budget and personnel constraints in recent years, coupled with initiatives to reach more students and faculty, left the presenter\u27s library facing a challenge: How can we build an instruction program that is collaborative, far-reaching, and, perhaps most importantly, sustainable? The library\u27s instruction team, including the presenters, came together to critically evaluate their work with a credit-bearing information literacy course, lower level general education courses, and the training of student workers who staff the combined library services desk. The team identified parts of their workload that while time intensive, did not produce a commensurate impact in terms of the number of students and faculty reached. With these considerations in mind, the team explored the adoption of commercially produced tools that offer a greater level of automation, make it easier to reach more students, and yet do not devalue the important role of librarians. Coinciding with the library\u27s internal dialogue was a growing discussion on campus of the need to integrate information literacy skills into the university\u27s general education program. In addition, the leadership of the Undergraduate Studies\u27 peer mentor program expressed a similar interest in supporting information literacy. The confluence of the library\u27s instruction program re-tooling and the increasing campus interest in information literacy have provided and continue to provide a fertile environment for librarians to help shape the development of information literacy initiatives on campus. To this end, a newly revitalized liaison program offers librarians an informal means of listening to and speaking with faculty and students about the information literacy in specific disciplines. At a more formal level, the service of librarians on important campus committees has provided a literal seat at the table from which to contribute to high-level conversation about information literacy on campus. The presenters will discuss how they and their instruction librarian colleagues came together to critically assess unsustainable, relatively low-impact instruction initiatives. Further, they will discuss their plan to use the Credo Information Literacy modules to better meet the campus need for information literacy instruction and assessment in a sustainable and scalable manner

Instability of pulses in gradient reaction-diffusion systems: A symplectic approach

In a scalar reaction-diffusion equation, it is known that the stability of a steady state can be determined from the Maslov index, a topological invariant that counts the state's critical points. In particular, this implies that pulse solutions are unstable. We extend this picture to pulses in reaction-diffusion systems with gradient nonlinearity. In particular, we associate a Maslov index to any asymptotically constant state, generalizing existing definitions of the Maslov index for homoclinic orbits. It is shown that this index equals the number of unstable eigenvalues for the linearized evolution equation. Finally, we use a symmetry argument to show that any pulse solution must have nonzero Maslov index, and hence be unstable.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc.

IUPUI Center for HPV Research: Effects of a Brief Health Messaging Intervention on HPV Vaccine Acceptability among Parents of Adolescent Sons

poster abstractBackground: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is an very common infection that is a primary cause of warts and many cancers, including cervical, anal, vaginal, vulvar, penile, and head and neck cancers. In an effort to address the problems associated with HPV infection and prevention, the Center for HPV Research at IUPUI (Zimet & Fortenberry, Co-Directors) fosters collaboration among investigators from multiple disciplines and departments at IUPUI, IU Bloomington, Purdue University, and University of Notre Dame. There currently are 25 faculty and 7 pre- and post-doctoral trainees who are members of the Center. The Center for HPV Research was established in July, 2012 with funds from the IUPUI Signature Center Initiative, The Department of Pediatrics, and the IU Simon Cancer Center. In this abstract we highlight a study representing a collaboration among 5 center members, including our current center-supported post-doc. Objectives: HPV vaccination coverage remains very low among adolescent males in the U.S. We explored the effect of brief Web-based health messages on parents’ willingness to vaccinate their sons against HPV. Methods: A U.S. national sample of parents of 11-17-year-old sons (N=779) completed a Web-based survey assessing attitudes and behaviors related to HPV vaccination. Parents of non-vaccinated sons (79% of the sample) were randomized to a two-level normalizing message (NM) condition: no message vs. NM (“Millions of doses of the vaccine have been administered to adolescent girls in the US at this time.”) and a three-level protection message (PM) condition: no message vs. son-only PM (“The HPV vaccine can protect your son from most kinds of genital warts and anal cancers,”) vs. son+partner PM (son-only message plus “If your son gets vaccinated it can also protect his future spouse from genital warts and cancer.”). Parents then reported willingness to vaccinate their sons against HPV on a scale of 1-100. Intervention effects were analyzed using a 2×3 between-subjects ANOVA. Results: Mean willingness was 55.2 (SD=29.7). A significant interaction was found between health messaging conditions, F(2,576) = 3.17, p = 0.043). Parents receiving the son-only PM reported significantly lower willingness if they received the NM vs. no NM (p=.014). Parents receiving no NM reported significantly higher willingness if they received the son + partner PM vs. no PM (p=.029). Conclusions: Reading brief online health messages affected parents’ willingness to vaccinate their adolescent sons against HPV. Overall, presenting normalizing information pertaining to adolescent females (for whom routine immunization was first recommended) appeared to lower parent willingness to vaccinate their adolescent sons. Presenting information about protecting their son and/or son’s partner against HPV-associated outcomes appeared to increase parent willingness to vaccinate in the absence of such normalizing information

ROSIE Findings 2: summary of 1-year outcomes: detoxification modality.

The Research Outcome Study in Ireland (ROSIE) is the first national, prospective, longitudinal, multi-site drug treatment outcome study in the country. The National Advisory Committee on Drugs (NACD) commissioned this research in 2002 as required by the National Drugs Strategy Action 99. The aim of the Study is to recruit and follow opiate users entering treatment over a period of time documenting the changes observed. Detoxification cohort: follow-up rates: Of the 81 people recruited within the detoxification modality, 93% (n=75) were located, and 77% (n=62) successfully completed a 1-year interview. One individual died within the follow-up period, four people withdrew from the study, eight people were located but not successfully interviewed, and an additional six participants were not located. These 19 people ‘lost’ to follow-up were excluded from the comparative analysis to allow for valid assessment across the two time periods.This is the second paper in the ROSIE Findings series and it provides a snapshot of the outcomes for people in the detoxification modality one year after treatment intake