A Preliminary Investigation of the Incidence of Acanthocephalans in Freshwater Fish from Two Similar Streams in Rowan County, Kentucky

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Sciences and Mathematics at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Biology by Langston D. Smith on July 23, 1969

Understanding Landscape Change Using Participatory Mapping and Geographic Information Systems: Case Study in North Sulawesi, Indonesia

AbstractA landscape provides key livelihood resources for people such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, extractive industries, and other productive land uses. It is the space in which dynamic and evolving nature-human interactions occur. Hence, understanding different functions and processes in a landscape becomes vital for poverty alleviation as well as sustainable management of natural resources. In our study to understand the landscape changes of North Sulawesi, the second richest province in Indonesia, we use a landscape approach to understand the connections between human livelihoods and environment. We studied five villages using Participatory Rural Assessments tools, consolidated questionnaires, formal and informal interviews of various stakeholders, GIS-based participatory mapping and in-the-field observations as well as secondary sources. We find natural hazards, climate variability, accessibility, extractive industries, food security and water scarcity are interlinked as big drivers of change in the landscape. Decision makers must consider them together to ensure community prosperity

Actor network analysis to leverage improvements in conservation and development outcomes in Cambodia

Network analysis has emerged as a useful practice for characterizing governance relationships and providing insights to the power relations that affect landscapes. We applied actor network analysis in two rural Cambodian landscapes to examine decision-making structures that affect conservation and development systems. Using questionnaire data, we analyze structural features of networks of cooperation and exchange to identify patterns of action and processes of change. We supplement our analysis with qualitative information gathered on power and social ecological components of landscapes to enrich our understanding of natural resource systems. We find that power in Cambodia is concentrated in a central hierarchy, and external actors aiming to influence decision making would benefit from operating at multiple scales; there is no single leverage point for interventions. Cooperation between conservation and development actors is lacking; we observe that actors tend to cluster within similar groups. Cross-sectoral collaboration may be enhanced by knowledge brokers, but current actors lack resources to fulfil this role and require external support. Our study highlights the importance of nongovernment actors as conveners and facilitators to shape natural resource governance in the context of weak institutions. We advocate more institutionalized use of diagnostics, such as actor network analysis, for enhanced natural resource governance

Pulsar Science with the Green Bank 43m Telescope

The 43m telescope at the NRAO site in Green Bank, WV has recently been outfitted with a clone of the Green Bank Ultimate Pulsar Processing Instrument (GUPPI \cite{Ransom:2009}) backend, making it very useful for a number of pulsar related studies in frequency ranges 800-1600 MHz and 220-440 MHz. Some of the recent science being done with it include: monitoring of the Crab pulsar, a blind search for transient sources, pulsar searches of targets of opportunity, and an all-sky mapping project. For the Crab monitoring project, regular observations are searched for giant pulses (GPs), which are then correlated with $\gamma$-ray photons from the \emph{Fermi} spacecraft. Data from the all-sky mapping project are first run through a pipeline that does a blind transient search, looking for single pulses over a DM range of 0-500 pc~cm$^{-3}$. These projects are made possible by MIT Lincoln Labs.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in AIP Conference Proceedings of Pulsar Conference 2010 "Radio Pulsars: a key to unlock the secrets of the Universe", Sardinia, October 201

Incarceration-Related Stigma and Caring Self-Efficacy Among Long-Term Care Nurses

Background: A silver tsunami is occurring in U.S. prisons because of an unprecedented increase in the older population. Prisons are structurally ill-suited to care for this population and financially burdened with providing the necessary medical and nursing care. States have enacted legislation to afford justice-involved persons parole to manage chronic conditions in community-based long-term care (LTC) facilities. Changes in Medicaid regulations provide a seamless transition from prison to community long-term care for this population. However, it is not known if the stigma of justice involvement impacts the perception of long-term nurses concerning this population. Aims/Purpose: This study examined the effects of a stigmatizing stimulus on the caring efficacy of LTC nurses by testing the following hypotheses: a) knowledge of the older patient’s justice involvement will be associated with lower caring self-efficacy when compared to the control vignette; b) knowledge of a history of sexual offenses will be associated with the lowest caring self-efficacy, when compared to all other vignettes, followed by non-sexual violence and non-violent offenses vignettes; c) justice-involved friend or family member and identifying with a Christian religion will be associated with higher caring self-efficacy for older justice-involved persons when compared to those without; and d) friends or family members working in law enforcement will be associated with a lower caring self-efficacy for older justice-involved persons when compared to those without. Methods: Using a vignette-based experimental design, participants completed the Caring Efficacy Scale after they were randomly assigned to one of four vignettes that mirrored the LTC resident population in age, chronic condition, and behavior, but differed by justice involvement. Data was examined with ANOVA analysis. Additional analyses investigated the effects of demographic variables obtained from participants using the researcher-developed demographic questionnaire. Results: This study suggested that LTC nurses exhibited a higher caring self-efficacy to the resident without justice-involvement as opposed to those residents with justice-involvement. Furthermore, among those residents with justice-involvement, LTC nurses exhibited a lower self-caring efficacy towards the resident with a sex offense history as opposed to the vignette residents with a violent and non-violent history of justice-involvement. The nurse’s identification with a Christian religion, having a friend or relative imprisoned, or having a friend or relative in law enforcement did not significantly affect the nurse’s caring self-efficacy. Furthermore, the nurse’s experience of being victimized or having knowledge of a friend or relative’s victimization did not significantly affect the nurse’s caring self-efficacy. Conclusion: Incarceration-related stigma affects the caring self-efficacy of LTC nurses. The effect may be driven by the nurse’s fear of justice-involved people, the nurse struggles with forgiveness towards those imprisoned for specific offenses, or the nurse may feel that justice-involved people are not deserving of high-quality nursing care. Qualitative research is needed to understand the feelings that LTC nurses experience when working with justice-involved people so that training can be developed

An experimental study of the sensitivity of helicopter rotor blade tracking to root pitch adjustment in hover

The sensitivity of blade tracking in hover to variations in root pitch was examined for two rotor configurations. Tests were conducted using a four bladed articulated rotor mounted on the NASA-Army aeroelastic rotor experimental system (ARES). Two rotor configurations were tested: one consisting of a blade set with flexible fiberglass spars and one with stiffer (by a factor of five in flapwise and torsional stiffnesses) aluminum spars. Both blade sets were identical in planform and airfoil distribution and were untwisted. The two configurations were ballasted to the same Lock number so that a direct comparison of the tracking sensitivity to a gross change in blade stiffness could be made. Experimental results show no large differences between the two sets of blades in the sensitivity of the blade tracking to root pitch adjustments. However, a measurable reduction in intrack coning of the fiberglass spar blades with respect to the aluminum blades is noted at higher rotor thrust conditions

Effects of circadian rhythm phase alteration on physiological and psychological variables: Implications to pilot performance (including a partially annotated bibliography)

The effects of environmental synchronizers upon circadian rhythmic stability in man and the deleterious alterations in performance and which result from changes in this stability are points of interest in a review of selected literature published between 1972 and 1980. A total of 2,084 references relevant to pilot performance and circadian phase alteration are cited and arranged in the following categories: (1) human performance, with focus on the effects of sleep loss or disturbance and fatigue; (2) phase shift in which ground based light/dark alteration and transmeridian flight studies are discussed; (3) shiftwork; (4)internal desynchronization which includes the effect of evironmental factors on rhythmic stability, and of rhythm disturbances on sleep and psychopathology; (5) chronotherapy, the application of methods to ameliorate desynchronization symptomatology; and (6) biorythm theory, in which the birthdate based biorythm method for predicting aircraft accident susceptability is critically analyzed. Annotations are provided for most citations

Learning from local perceptions for strategic road development in Cambodia's protected forests

Road development in tropical forest landscapes is contentious. Local preferences are often subordinated to global economic and environmental concerns. Opportunities to seek solutions based on local context are rare. We examined local perspectives on road development within Cambodia's Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary to explore opportunities for optimizing conservation and development outcomes. We conducted household surveys to document the perceived benefits and risks of road development. We found that in the sanctuary, road rehabilitation may accelerate transitions to intensified agriculture and diversified, off-farm incomes. All households prefer good roads and poorer households prioritize road development over other village infrastructure. Households perceive the most prominent benefit of roads to be access to hospital. Local government authorities are responsible for controlling land use and conversion within village boundaries and are therefore highly influential in determining the social and environmental outcomes of roads. Strategies to mitigate environmental risks of roads without constraining development benefits must focus on improving local capacity for decision-making and transparency. Local institutions in tropical forest landscapes must have greater control over development benefits if they are to reinvest assets to achieve conservation success