How Can General Education Teachers Learn to Build Positive Relationships with EL Students by Integrating EL Best Practice Strategies Into Their Teaching?

The research question addressed in this project was, how can general education teachers learn to build positive relationships with EL students by integrating EL best practice strategies into their teaching? This project involves a teacher’s creation of a project directed at educating other teaching staff on how to create and develop positive relationships with language learner students. The project made use of Knowles best practices in adult education to make the most effective use of time when addressing adult learners. The author describes the process of building and then delivering the project content. He also reflects on the successes, limitations, and implications of the project for the teaching profession

Monitoring live fuel moisture using soil moisture and remote sensing proxies

Live fuel moisture (LFM) is an important fuel property controlling fuel ignition and fire propagation. LFM varies seasonally, and is controlled by precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and plant physiology. LFM is typically sampled manually in the field, which leads to sparse measurements in space and time. Use of LFM proxies could reduce the need for field sampling while potentially improving spatial and temporal sampling density. This study compares soil moisture and remote sensing data to field-sampled LFM for Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii Nutt) and big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt) in northern Utah. Bivariate linear regression models were constructed between LFM and four independent variables. Soil moisture was more strongly correlated with LFM than remote sensing measurements, and produced the lowest mean absolute error (MAE) in predicted LFM values at most of the sites. When sites were pooled, canopy water content (CWC) had stronger correlations with LFM than normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) or normalized difference water index (NDWI). MAE values for all proxies were frequently above 20 % LFM at individual sites. Despite this relatively large error, remote sensing and soil moisture data may still be useful for improving understanding of spatial and temporal trends in LFM

A Century of Observations Reveals Increasing Likelihood of Continental-Scale Compound Dry-Hot Extremes

Using over a century of ground-based observations over the contiguous United States, we show that the frequency of compound dry and hot extremes has increased substantially in the past decades, with an alarming increase in very rare dry-hot extremes. Our results indicate that the area affected by concurrent extremes has also increased significantly. Further, we explore homogeneity (i.e., connectedness) of dry-hot extremes across space. We show that dry-hot extremes have homogeneously enlarged over the past 122 years, pointing to spatial propagation of extreme dryness and heat and increased probability of continental-scale compound extremes. Last, we show an interesting shift between the main driver of dry-hot extremes over time. While meteorological drought was the main driver of dry-hot events in the 1930s, the observed warming trend has become the dominant driver in recent decades. Our results provide a deeper understanding of spatiotemporal variation of compound dry-hot extremes

Fast and Accurate Retrieval of Methane Concentration From Imaging Spectrometer Data Using Sparsity Prior

The strong radiative forcing by atmospheric methane has stimulated interest in identifying natural and anthropogenic sources of this potent greenhouse gas. Point sources are important targets for quantification, and anthropogenic targets have the potential for emissions reduction. Methane point-source plume detection and concentration retrieval have been previously demonstrated using data from the Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG). Current quantitative methods have tradeoffs between computational requirements and retrieval accuracy, creating obstacles for processing real-time data or large data sets from flight campaigns. We present a new computationally efficient algorithm that applies sparsity and an albedo correction to matched the filter retrieval of trace gas concentration path length. The new algorithm was tested using the AVIRIS-NG data acquired over several point-source plumes in Ahmedabad, India. The algorithm was validated using the simulated AVIRIS-NG data, including synthetic plumes of known methane concentration. Sparsity and albedo correction together reduced the root-mean-squared error of retrieved methane concentration-path length enhancement by 60.7% compared with a previous robust matched filter method. Background noise was reduced by a factor of 2.64. The new algorithm was able to process the entire 300 flight line 2016 AVIRIS-NG India campaign in just over 8 h on a desktop computer with GPU acceleration

Fast and Accurate Retrieval of Methane Concentration from Imaging Spectrometer Data Using Sparsity Prior

The strong radiative forcing by atmospheric methane has stimulated interest in identifying natural and anthropogenic sources of this potent greenhouse gas. Point sources are important targets for quantification, and anthropogenic targets have potential for emissions reduction. Methane point source plume detection and concentration retrieval have been previously demonstrated using data from the Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG). Current quantitative methods have tradeoffs between computational requirements and retrieval accuracy, creating obstacles for processing real-time data or large datasets from flight campaigns. We present a new computationally efficient algorithm that applies sparsity and an albedo correction to matched filter retrieval of trace gas concentration-pathlength. The new algorithm was tested using AVIRIS-NG data acquired over several point source plumes in Ahmedabad, India. The algorithm was validated using simulated AVIRIS-NG data including synthetic plumes of known methane concentration. Sparsity and albedo correction together reduced the root mean squared error of retrieved methane concentration-pathlength enhancement by 60.7% compared with a previous robust matched filter method. Background noise was reduced by a factor of 2.64. The new algorithm was able to process the entire 300 flightline 2016 AVIRIS-NG India campaign in just over 8 hours on a desktop computer with GPU acceleration.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure

Maternal serum retinol and B-carotene concentrations and neonatal bone mineralisation: Results from the Southampton Women's Survey cohort

Background: studies in older adults and animals have suggested contrasting relations between bone health and different vitamin A compounds. To our knowledge, the associations between maternal vitamin A status and offspring bone development have not previously been elucidated.Objective: we examined the associations between maternal serum retinol and ?-carotene concentrations during late pregnancy and offspring bone mineralization assessed at birth with the use of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry.Design: in the Southampton Women’s Survey mother-offspring birth cohort, maternal health, lifestyle, and diet were assessed prepregnancy and at 11 and 34 wk of gestation. In late pregnancy, maternal serum retinol and ?-carotene concentrations were measured. Offspring total body bone mineral density (BMD), bone mineral content (BMC), and bone area (BA) were measured within 2 wk after birth.Results: in total, 520 and 446 mother-offspring pairs had measurements of maternal serum retinol and ?-carotene, respectively. Higher maternal serum retinol in late pregnancy was associated with lower offspring total body BMC (? = ?0.10 SD/SD; 95% CI: ?0.19, ?0.02; P = 0.020) and BA (? = ?0.12 SD/SD; 95% CI: ?0.20, ?0.03; P = 0.009) but not BMD. Conversely, higher maternal serum ?-carotene concentrations in late pregnancy were associated with greater total body BMC (? = 0.12 SD/SD; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.21; P = 0.016) and BA (? = 0.12 SD/SD; 95% CI: 0.03, 0.22; P = 0.010) but not BMD.Conclusions: maternal serum retinol and ?-carotene concentrations had differing associations with offspring bone size and growth at birth: retinol was negatively associated with these measurements, whereas ?-carotene was positively associated. These findings highlight the need for further investigation of the effects of maternal retinol and carotenoid status on offspring bone developmen

Insights from wildfire science: A resource for fire policy discussions

Record blazes swept across parts of the US in 2015, burning more than 10 million acres. The four biggest fire seasons since 1960 have all occurred in the last 10 years, leading to fears of a ‘new normal’ for wildfire. Fire fighters and forest managers are overwhelmed, and it is clear that the policy and management approaches of the past will not suffice under this new era of western wildfires. In recent decades, state and federal policymakers, tribes, and others are confronting longer fire seasons (Jolly et al. 2015), more large fires (Dennison et al. 2014), a tripling of homes burned, and a doubling of firefighter deaths (Rasker 2015). Federal agencies now spend $2 to$3 billion annually fighting fires (and in the case of the US Forest Service, over 50% of their budget), and the total cost to society may be up to 30 times more than the direct cost of firefighting. If we want to contain these costs and reduce risks to communities, economies, and natural systems, we can draw on the best available science when designing fire management strategies, as called for in the recent federal report on Wildland Fire Science and Technology. Here, we highlight key science insights that can contribute to the public discourse on wildfire policy and associated management of forests, woodlands, and shrublands. This information is fundamental to decisions that will promote resilient communities and landscapes facing more fire in the future