The English Manorial Group with Special Reference to the Manors Belonging to the Bishopric of Winchester in the Thirteenth Century

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 1922. Major: History. 1 computer file (PDF); approx 345 pages

Profiling unauthorized natural resource users for better targeting of conservation interventions

Unauthorized use of natural resources is a key threat to many protected areas. Approaches to reducing this threat include law enforcement and integrated conservation and development (ICD) projects, but for such ICDs to be targeted effectively, it is important to understand who is illegally using which natural resources and why. The nature of unauthorized behavior makes it difficult to ascertain this information through direct questioning. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, has many ICD projects, including authorizing some local people to use certain nontimber forest resources from the park. However, despite over 25 years of ICD, unauthorized resource use continues. We used household surveys, indirect questioning (unmatched count technique), and focus group discussions to generate profiles of authorized and unauthorized resource users and to explore motivations for unauthorized activity. Overall, unauthorized resource use was most common among people from poor households who lived closest to the park boundary and farthest from roads and trading centers. Other motivations for unauthorized resource use included crop raiding by wild animals, inequity of revenue sharing, and lack of employment, factors that created resentment among the poorest communities. In some communities, benefits obtained from ICD were reported to be the greatest deterrents against unauthorized activity, although law enforcement ranked highest overall. Despite the sensitive nature of exploring unauthorized resource use, management‐relevant insights into the profiles and motivations of unauthorized resource users can be gained from a combination of survey techniques, as adopted here. To reduce unauthorized activity at Bwindi, we suggest ICD benefit the poorest people living in remote areas and near the park boundary by providing affordable alternative sources of forest products and addressing crop raiding. To prevent resentment from driving further unauthorized activity, ICDs should be managed transparently and equitably

Emotion Recognition using Wireless Signals

This paper demonstrates a new technology that can infer a person's emotions from RF signals reflected off his body. EQ-Radio transmits an RF signal and analyzes its reflections off a person's body to recognize his emotional state (happy, sad, etc.). The key enabler underlying EQ-Radio is a new algorithm for extracting the individual heartbeats from the wireless signal at an accuracy comparable to on-body ECG monitors. The resulting beats are then used to compute emotion-dependent features which feed a machine-learning emotion classifier. We describe the design and implementation of EQ-Radio, and demonstrate through a user study that its emotion recognition accuracy is on par with state-of-the-art emotion recognition systems that require a person to be hooked to an ECG monitor. Keywords: Wireless Signals; Wireless Sensing; Emotion Recognition; Affective Computing; Heart Rate VariabilityNational Science Foundation (U.S.)United States. Air Forc

How to ask sensitive questions in conservation: A review of specialized questioning techniques

Tools for social research are critical for developing an understanding of conservation problems and assessing the feasibility of conservation actions. Social surveys are an essential tool frequently applied in conservation to assess both people’s behaviour and to understand its drivers. However, little attention has been given to the weaknesses and strengths of different survey tools. When topics of conservation concern are illegal or otherwise sensitive, data collected using direct questions are likely to be affected by non-response and social desirability biases, reducing their validity. These sources of bias associated with using direct questions on sensitive topics have long been recognised in the social sciences but have been poorly considered in conservation and natural resource management. We reviewed specialized questioning techniques developed in a number of disciplines specifically for investigating sensitive topics. These methods ensure respondent anonymity, increase willingness to answer, and critically, make it impossible to directly link incriminating data to an individual. We describe each method and report their main characteristics, such as data requirements, possible data outputs, availability of evidence that they can be adapted for use in illiterate communities, and summarize their main advantages and disadvantages. Recommendations for their application in conservation are given. We suggest that the conservation toolbox should be expanded by incorporating specialized questioning techniques, developed specifically to increase response accuracy. By considering the limitations of each survey technique, we will ultimately contribute to more effective evaluations of conservation interventions and more robust policy decisions

A Novel Approach to Assessing the Prevalence and Drivers of Illegal Bushmeat Hunting in the Serengeti

Assessing anthropogenic effects on biological diversity, identifying drivers of human behavior, and motivating behavioral change are at the core of effective conservation. Yet knowledge of people's behaviors is often limited because the true extent of natural resource exploitation is difficult to ascertain, particularly if it is illegal. To obtain estimates of rule-breaking behavior, a technique has been developed with which to ask sensitive questions. We used this technique, unmatched-count technique (UCT), to provide estimates of bushmeat poaching, to determine motivation and seasonal and spatial distribution of poaching, and to characterize poaching households in the Serengeti. We also assessed the potential for survey biases on the basis of respondent perceptions of understanding, anonymity, and discomfort. Eighteen percent of households admitted to being involved in hunting. Illegal bushmeat hunting was more likely in households with seasonal or full-time employment, lower household size, and longer household residence in the village. The majority of respondents found the UCT questions easy to understand and were comfortable answering them. Our results suggest poaching remains widespread in the Serengeti and current alternative sources of income may not be sufficiently attractive to compete with the opportunities provided by hunting. We demonstrate that the UCT is well suited to investigating noncompliance in conservation because it reduces evasive responses, resulting in more accurate estimates, and is technically simple to apply. We suggest that the UCT could be more widely used, with the trade-off being the increased complexity of data analyses and requirement for large sample sizes

Nothing but the truth: Consistency and efficiency of the list experiment method for the measurement of sensitive health behaviours

Rationale: Social desirability bias, which is the tendency to under-report socially, undesirable health behaviours, significantly distorts information on sensitive behaviours, gained from self-reports and prevents accurate estimation of the prevalence of those, behaviours. We contribute to a growing body of literature that seeks to assess the performance of the list experiment method to improve estimation of these sensitive health behaviours. Method: We use a double-list experiment design in which respondents serve as the treatment group for one list and as the control group for the other list to estimate the prevalence of two sensitive health behaviours in different settings: condom use among 500 female sex workers in urban Senegal and physical intimate partner violence among 1700 partnered women in rural Burkina Faso. First, to assess whether the list experiment improves the accuracy of estimations of the prevalence of sensitive behaviours, we compare the prevalence rates estimated from self-reports with those elicited through the list experiment. Second, we test whether the prevalence rates of the sensitive behaviours obtained using the double-list design are similar, and we estimate the reduction in the standard errors obtained with this design. Finally, we compare the results obtained through another indirect elicitation method, the polling vote method. Results: We show that the list experiment method reduces misreporting by 17 percentage points for condom use and 16–20 percentage points for intimate partner violence. Exploiting the double-list experiment design, we also demonstrate that the prevalence estimates obtained through the use of the two lists are identical in the full sample and across sub-groups and that the double-list design reduces the standard errors by approximately 40% compared to the standard errors in the simple list design. Finally, we show that the list experiment method leads to a higher estimation of the prevalence of sensitive behaviours than the polling vote method. Conclusion: The study suggests that list experiments are an effective method to improve estimation of the prevalence of sensitive health behaviours

A Novel Radar Sensor for the Non-Contact Detection of Speech Signals

Different speech detection sensors have been developed over the years but they are limited by the loss of high frequency speech energy, and have restricted non-contact detection due to the lack of penetrability. This paper proposes a novel millimeter microwave radar sensor to detect speech signals. The utilization of a high operating frequency and a superheterodyne receiver contributes to the high sensitivity of the radar sensor for small sound vibrations. In addition, the penetrability of microwaves allows the novel sensor to detect speech signals through nonmetal barriers. Results show that the novel sensor can detect high frequency speech energies and that the speech quality is comparable to traditional microphone speech. Moreover, the novel sensor can detect speech signals through a nonmetal material of a certain thickness between the sensor and the subject. Thus, the novel speech sensor expands traditional speech detection techniques and provides an exciting alternative for broader application prospects