Nesting and Brooding Characteristics of Sharp-Tailed Grouse (Pedioecetes Phasianellus Jamesi Lincoln) in Southwestern North Dakota

A study of the nesting and brood habitat preferences of sharp-tailed grouse (Pedioecetes phasianellus jamesi Lincoln) was conducted in southwestern North Dakota during the reproductive seasons of 1969 and 1970. Radio telemetry was used to monitor the spring and summer activities of seventeen sharp-tail hens. Eight brooding hens were semi-continuously radio-tracked for movement and cover selection. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of seventeen nests and eight renests was made to determine the preferred nesting cover and the effects of intensive grazing upon it .. Nests were established either in non-use areas or in areas of light to moderate grazing. These included both taller patch vegetation of draws and shorter uniform vegetation of open fields; greater hatching success occurred in the uniform areas. Important nest site species included crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum), buckbrush (Symporicarpos occidentalis), and sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis). Non-use grasslands, edges of heavily grazed pastures, and brushy draws were utilized extensively by broods

Understanding Law Enforcement Intelligence Processes: Report to the Office of University Programs, Science and Technology Directorate

Despite clear evidence of significant changes, very little research exists that examines issues related to the intelligence practices of state, local, and tribal (SLT) law enforcement agencies. Important questions on the nature of the issues that impact SLT intelligence practices remain. While there is some uncertainty among SLT law enforcement about current terrorism threats, there is certainty that these threats evolve in a largely unpredictable pattern. As a result there is an ongoing need for consistent and effective information collection, analysis and sharing. Little information is known about perceptions of how information is being shared between agencies and whether technologies have improved or hurt information sharing, and little is known about whether agencies think they are currently prepared for a terrorist attack, and the key factors distinguishing those that think they are compared to those who do not. This study was designed to address these issues, and a better understanding of these issues could significantly enhance intelligence practices and enhance public safety.This research was supported by the Department of Homeland Science and Technology Directorate’s Office of University Programs through Award Number 2012-ST-061-CS0001, Center for the Study of Terrorism and Behavior (CSTAB) 2.13 made to START to investigate the understanding and countering of terrorism within the U.S. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or START

The appeal to nature implicit in certain restrictions on public funding for assisted reproductive technology

Certain restrictions on public funding for assisted reproductive technology (ART) are articulated and defended by recourse to a distinction between medical infertility and social infertility. We propose that underlying the prioritization of medical infertility is a vision of medicine whose proper role is to restore but not to improve upon nature. We go on to mark moral responses that speak of investments many continue to make in nature as properly an object of reverence and gratitude and therein (sometimes) a source of moral guidance. We draw on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein in arguing for the plausibility of an appeal to nature in opposition to the charge that it must contain a logical fallacy. We also invite consideration of the moral plausibility of some appeal to nature. Finally, we examine what follows in the case of ART. Should medicine respect as natural limits that should not be overcome: the need for a man and a woman in reproduction; menopause; and even declining fertility with age? We must first ask ourselves to what degree we should defer to nature in the conduct of medicine, at least in the particular if not the general case. This will involve also asking ourselves what we think is natural and in what instances and spirit might we defy nature. Divergent opinions and policies concerning who should receive ART treatment and public funding are more easily understood in view of the centrality, complexity and fundamental nature of these questions

United Way 21 CCLC - Minnesota Student Survey

The United Way of Central Minnesota aims to close the gap between the education level of students and the income class of their families. During this presentation, we will analyze and make conclusions from a set of data that was collected by the United Way of Central Minnesota on students. This set of data looked at a variety of different things, including which after school center the student attended, their feelings about school, and if they are on a free or reduced-price lunch at school. Our graphs and pivot tables are representations of what we discovered from this dataset

Understanding the Intelligence Practices of State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies

In addition, the study examined the activities of three fusion centers in order to identify strategies that are successful in increasing the information flow across agencies, the major obstacles to effective intelligence-gathering and information-sharing, and identify key practices for integrating domestic intelligence into the information-sharing environment and overcoming these obstacles. The study found that although significant progress has been made since 9/11 in installing fundamental policy and procedures related to building the intelligence capacity of law enforcement, there is significant room for improvement and a need to move agencies forward to be consistent with key requirements. Also, fusion centers are further along in instituting intelligence policies and practices than are individual law enforcement agencies. This is most likely because there has been a focus on developing fusion center operations and expertise by both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. In addition, both samples of respondents emphasized that they have worked at building relationships with a diverse range of agencies, but they also indicated that they are not completely satisfied with these relationships. Further, there is a significant amount of information coming into and going out of these agencies. It is likely that without sufficient analysts within the organizations or poorly trained analysts, there are missed opportunities for strategic and tactical understanding of homeland security and criminal threats. Assessing the performance of analysts is difficult, but respondents emphasized the need to focus on the quality of strategic and tactical products produced

Law Enforcement’s Information Sharing Infrastructure: A National Assessment

The September 11 attacks impacted society generally, and law enforcement specifically, in dramatic ways. One of the major trends has been changing expectations regarding criminal intelligence practices among state, local, and tribal (SLT) law enforcement agencies and the need to coordinate intelligence efforts and share information at all levels of government. In fact, enhancing intelligence efforts has emerged as a critical issue for the prevention of all threats and crimes. To date, an increasing number of SLT law enforcement agencies have expanded their intelligence capacity, and there have been fundamental changes in the national, state, and local information sharing infrastructure. Moreover, critical to these expanding information sharing expectations is the institutionalization of fusion centers (FCs). Despite these dramatic changes, an expanding role, and the acknowledgement that local law enforcement intelligence is critical to the prevention and deterrence of threats and crimes, very little research exists that highlights issues related to the intelligence practices of SLT law enforcement agencies and FCs.1 This research describes what agencies are doing to build an intelligence capacity and assesses the state of information sharing among agencies. Specifically, a national survey was developed to examine the experiences of SLT agencies and FCs for building an intelligence capacity as well as to understand critical gaps in the sharing of information regarding intelligence

Why is pain still under-treated in the emergency department? Two new hypotheses

Across the world, pain is under‐treated in emergency departments (EDs). We canvass the literature testifying to this problem, the reasons why this problem is so important, and then some of the main hypotheses that have been advanced in explanation of the problem. We then argue for the plausibility of two new hypotheses: pain\u27s under‐treatment in the ED is due partly to (1) an epistemic preference for signs over symptoms on the part of some practitioners, and (2) some ED practices that themselves worsen pain by increasing patients\u27 anxiety and fear. Our argument includes the following logic. Some ED practitioners depart from formal guidance in basing their acute pain assessments on observable features rather than on patient reports of pain. This is potentially due to an epistemic preference for signs over symptoms which aims to circumvent intentional and/or unintentional misrepresentation on the part of patients. However, conducting pain assessments in line with this epistemic preference contributes to the under‐treatment of pain in at least three respects, which we detail. Moreover, it may do little to help the practitioner circumvent any intentional misrepresentation on the part of the patient, as we explain. Second, we examine at least four ED practices that may be contributing to the under‐treatment of pain by increasing patient anxiety and fear, which can worsen pain. These practices include failing to provide orienting information and partially objectifying patients so as to problem‐solve along lines pre‐established by modern medical science. We conclude by touching on some potential solutions for ED practice

Population Synthesis of Hot Subdwarfs: A Parameter Study

Binaries that contain a hot subdwarf (sdB) star and a main sequence companion may have interacted in the past. This binary population has historically helped determine our understanding of binary stellar evolution. We have computed a grid of binary population synthesis models using different assumptions about the minimum core mass for helium ignition, the envelope binding energy, the common envelope ejection efficiency, the amount of mass and angular momentum lost during stable mass transfer, and the criteria for stable mass transfer on the red giant branch and in the Hertzsprung gap. These parameters separately and together can significantly change the entire predicted population of sdBs. Nonetheless, several different parameter sets can reproduce the observed subpopulation of sdB + white dwarf and sdB + M dwarf binaries, which has been used to constrain these parameters in previous studies. The period distribution of sdB + early F dwarf binaries offers a better test of different mass transfer scenarios for stars that fill their Roche lobes on the red giant branch.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Critiquing Protein Family Classification Models Using Sufficient Input Subsets.

In many application domains, neural networks are highly accurate and have been deployed at large scale. However, users often do not have good tools for understanding how these models arrive at their predictions. This has hindered adoption in fields such as the life and medical sciences, where researchers require that models base their decisions on underlying biological phenomena rather than peculiarities of the dataset. We propose a set of methods for critiquing deep learning models and demonstrate their application for protein family classification, a task for which high-accuracy models have considerable potential impact. Our methods extend the Sufficient Input Subsets (SIS) technique, which we use to identify subsets of features in each protein sequence that are alone sufficient for classification. Our suite of tools analyzes these subsets to shed light on the decision-making criteria employed by models trained on this task. These tools show that while deep models may perform classification for biologically relevant reasons, their behavior varies considerably across the choice of network architecture and parameter initialization. While the techniques that we develop are specific to the protein sequence classification task, the approach taken generalizes to a broad set of scientific contexts in which model interpretability is essential

Should there be a female age limit on public funding for Assisted Reproductive Technology? Differing conceptions of justice in resource allocation

Should there be a female age limit on public funding for assisted reproductive technology (ART)? The question bears significant economic and sociopolitical implications and has been contentious in many countries. We conceptualise the question as one of justice in resource allocation, using three much-debated substantive principles of justice—the capacity to benefit, personal responsibility, and need—to structure and then explore a complex of arguments. Capacity-to-benefit arguments are not decisive: There are no clear cost-effectiveness grounds to restrict funding to those older women who still bear some capacity to benefit from ART. Personal responsibility arguments are challenged by structural determinants of delayed motherhood. Nor are need arguments decisive: They can speak either for or against a female age limit, depending on the conception of need used. We demonstrate how these principles can differ not only in content but also in the relative importance they are accorded by governments. Wide variation in ART public funding policy might be better understood in this light. We conclude with some inter-country comparison. New Zealand and Swedish policies are uncommonly transparent and thus demonstrate particularly well how the arguments we explore have been put into practice