Environmental planning for an Alaskan water-oriented recreational area

Completion Report OWRT Agreement No. 14-31-0001-4056 Project No. B-026-ALASThis research focused initially on delineation of the proper procedures to be applied when the state of Alaska, through the appropriate agencies, selects and develops water-based recreation areas. The Nancy Lakes recreational area was selected as a case study for testing these procedures. This area is located approximately 106 km (66 road miles) northwest of Anchorage along the Parks Highway (61°N,150°W). When the research was begun in July of 1973, this area was determined to be important to the future recreational needs of the residents of the growing municipality of Anchorage as well as to travelers between Fairbanks and Anchorage along the newly opened highway. Today, this area is even more important as the new capital of the state of Alaska will be located approximately 6 km (4 miles) east of Nancy Lakes. In the summer of 1974, difficulties arose concerning the objectives of the project and the reports to be generated. Therefore, a decision was made to terminate the research at Nancy Lakes. A partial completion report was compiled concerning the work completed to September 1, 1974. This report was distributed to cooperators at the State of Alaska, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks; the Sport Fish Division of Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Palmer; and to the Office of Water Resources Research, the predecessor of the Office of Water Research and Technology. The research has continued, focusing on the Tanana Lakes near Fairbanks, Alaska, (64°N,146°N) with the cooperation of the Sport Fish Division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Fairbanks. These lakes, located within 160 km (100 miles) of Fairbanks, are important to the residents of Fairbanks, as well as to tourists driving to Fairbanks from the 48 continguous states. Many Fairbanks residents have cottages at one of the three largest of these, Harding, Birch, and Quartz Lakes. Several youth groups have summer camps on these lakes; the U. S. Army and the U. S. Air Force are currently sharing an extensive recreation facility at Birch Lake; and the state park at Harding Lake is one of the state's most utilized campgrounds. The research on this lake group has focused on the variation in productivity between these lakes due to differences in lake morphometry and watershed characteristics, with some attempt to assess recreational impacts on their water quality.The work upon which this completion report is based was supported by funds provided by the U. S. Department of Interior, Office of Water Research and Technology as authorized under the Water Resources Research Act of 1964, Public Law 88-379, as amended. Matching funds were provided by the State of Alaska, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks; and Department of Fish and Game, Sport Fish Division

Describing and Mapping the Interactions between Student Affective Factors Related to Persistence in Science, Physics, and Engineering

This dissertation explores how students’ beliefs and attitudes interact with their identities as physics people, motivated by calls to increase participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. This work combines several theoretical frameworks, including Identity theory, Future Time Perspective theory, and other personality traits to investigate associations between these factors. An enriched understanding of how these attitudinal factors are associated with each other extends prior models of identity and link theoretical frameworks used in psychological and educational research. The research uses a series of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, including linear and logistic regression analysis, thematic interview analysis, and an innovative analytic technique adapted for use with student educational data for the first time: topological data analysis via the Mapper algorithm. Engineering students were surveyed in their introductory engineering courses. Several factors are found to be associated with physics identity, including student interest in particular engineering majors. The distributions of student scores on these affective constructs are simultaneously represented in a map of beliefs, from which the existence of a large “normative group” of students (according to their beliefs) is identified, defined by the data as a large concentration of similarly minded students. Significant differences exist in the demographic representation of this normative group compared to other students, which has implications for recruitment efforts that seek to increase diversity in STEM fields. Select students from both the normative group and outside the normative group were selected for subsequent interviews investigating their associations between physics and engineering, and how their physics identities evolve during their engineering careers. Further analyses suggest a more complex model of physics and engineering identity which is not necessarily uniform for all engineering students, including discipline-specific differences that should be further investigated. Further, the use of physics identity as a model to describe engineering student choices may be limited in applicability to early college. Interview analysis shows that physics recognition beliefs become contextualized in engineering as students begin to view physics as an increasingly distinct domain from engineering

Bringing The Past To Life: Co-creating tourism experiences in historic house tourist attractions

This ethnographic study concentrates on the co-creation of experiential value between the tourist and tour guide in a single historic tourism site; Huntingdon Castle, Ireland. Built upon the principles of service dominant logic, the research explores how storytelling acts as an engagement platform and value enhancing strategic resource. In doing so, it impels the value co-creation journey and shapes the tourist’s experience. Observation is coupled with qualitative interviews to capture the dual perspective of both guides and tourists. Findings exhibit the co-creation process through the performance of stories; how and when people derive pleasure (value); the influencing aspects of the environment or place; and guide/tourist perspectives on how they feel and think during the experience. The research contributes by taking a practical operational view of how co-creation occurs. It goes beyond the guide’s perspective and exhibits the importance of co-creation of lived experience in the story enhanced tourism experience framework

Determining gene flow, linkage and parental contribution in Pinus elliottii X Pinus caribaea pine hybrids

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this documentDissertation (MSc (Genetics))--University of Pretoria, 2007.Geneticsunrestricte

Mitochondrial genome of an Allegheny Woodrat (\u3ci\u3eNeotoma magister\u3c/i\u3e)

The Allegheny woodrat (Neotoma magister) is endemic to the eastern United States. Population numbers have decreased rapidly over the last four decades due to habitat fragmentation, disease-related mortality, genetic isolation and inbreeding depression; however, effective management is hampered by limited genetic resources. To begin addressing this need, we sequenced and assembled the entire Allegheny woodrat mitochondrial genome. The genome assembly is 16,310 base pairs in length, with an overall base composition of 34% adenine, 27% thymine, 26% cytosine and 13% guanine. This resource will facilitate our understanding of woodrat population genetics and behavioral ecology

Paedomorphosis in Ambystoma talpoideum: Effects of initial body size variation and density

Abstract Facultative paedomorphosis is the ability of a salamander to either metamorphose into a terrestrial, metamorphic adult or retain a larval morphology to become a sexually mature paedomorphic adult. It has been hypothesized that density and initial body size variation within populations are instrumental in cueing metamorphosis or paedomorphosis in salamanders, yet few studies have adequately tested these hypotheses in long-term experiments. Beginning in the spring of 2004, 36 experimental ponds were used to manipulate three body size variation levels (low, medium, high) and two density levels (low, high) of Ambystoma talpoideum larvae. Larvae were individually marked using visible implant elastomers and collected every 2 weeks in order to measure snout-vent length and mass. Bi-nightly sampling was used to collect new metamorphs as they appeared. Analysis revealed signiWcant eVects of density, size variation and morph on body size of individuals during the summer. Individuals that metamorphosed during the fall and following spring were signiWcantly larger as larvae than those becoming paedomorphic across all treatments. These results support the Best-of-aBad-Lot hypothesis, which proposes that the largest larvae metamorphose in order to escape unfavorable aquatic habitats. Large larvae may metamorphose to leave aquatic habitats, regardless of treatment, due to the colder climate and lower productivity found in Kentucky, which is in the northern-most part of A. talpoideum's range. By maintaining a long-term experiment, we have provided evidence for the transition of both larvae and paedomorphs into metamorphs during fall and spring metamorphosis events. Furthermore, the production of similar morphs under diVerent environmental conditions observed in this research suggests that the ecological mechanisms maintaining polyphenisms may be more diverse that Wrst suspected

More Comprehensive and Inclusive Approaches to Demographic Data Collection

In this evidence-based practice paper, we discuss ways for researchers and educators to more sensitively, accurately, and effectively collect demographic information on surveys. Identifying variables that capture diversity more broadly is vital in understanding the variety of ways in which students participate in and experiencing engineering education. We frame this discussion through publically available statistics that suggest the potential error in common approaches employed for demographic collection. While basic questions about participants’ sex and ethnicity are standard items in assessment and data collection, these questions only develop a limited representation and potentially present an inaccurate accounting of students’ social identities and honest self-expression. Classic demographic measurement approaches classify students on broad, general, and historically driven elements of diversity typically defined by others rather than individual students. Unfortunately, simply asking a participant to self-identify their gender dichotomously or select from a pre-defined set of ethnicity options has the potential to record information that does not completely or accurately represent a student’s self-identified characteristics or a researchers latent purpose. Alternatively, asking questions via simple open-ended queries both maintains any problem represented in the phrasing of the question as well as presents a major loss in efficiency by requiring a post-collection coding step. In this paper we discuss three major topics through reviews of literature, emergent cultural norms, and suggestions for better practices. First, we will cover the framing of demographic questions to gather the intended information (i.e., differentiating how the student experiences the world and how the world experiences the student). Second, we address ordering of demographic questions and the extended capability provided by modern online collection tools. Finally, using the lessons of parts one and two we offer some examples of improved ways of collecting a variety of demographic information such as gender identity, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, disability status, and socioeconomic status. The examples will show how researchers can be more sensitive to issues of diversity while at the same time improving research quality