Dendrochronology in the Blackwater Ecological Preserve

The Blackwater Ecological Preserve (BEP), located in southeastern Virginia, holds significant ecological importance as it contains the northernmost intact community of Pinus palustris, longleaf pine. At the BEP, we cored longleaf pine and recorded sample data including tree height and diameter at breast height (DBH). Two sites on the BEP, the 20’s series and 40’s series, were found to correlate within, but not between, sites. Statistical and qualitative analyses were conducted to find differences between the sites significant enough to affect correlation within a chronology. This data is being incorporated into a larger dendrochronology and climate analysis study on longleaf and other pine species on the BEP. This research is important for several reasons. Currently, no baseline master chronology exists for any tree species of the BEP, so the age of the pine populations is unknown. Additionally, there is a significant lack of research on climate related growth trends involving the longleaf pine near the northern range limit. The information produced from this study may have implications in the future management of the Preserve and its pine populations.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/gradposters2023_sciences/1018/thumbnail.jp

“Beyond being analysts of doom”: scientists on the frontlines of climate action

What happens when scientists become activists? In this paper, we discuss the principles, commitments and experiences of Scientist Rebellion (SR), a movement of scientists, academics, and researchers committed to activism, advocacy and non-violent civil disobedience against the (in)actions of governments, corporations and other institutions, including academic ones. In sharing experiences from the frontlines of direct actions with SR along with the perspectives from individual scientists, coming from a variety of geographical locations, and a range of academic levels and disciplines, we reflect on the need to transgress the boundaries of a system of knowledge production and education that is effectively reproducing the very structures that have led us into climate and ecological crises. This article provides a reflective and critical engagement with Scientist Rebellion, drawing on a range of interviews with activists, as well as material from and about Scientist Rebellion. We conclude with a reflection on the relation between scientists and their institutions, as well as a mobilizing plea to the scientific community to take action.Peer Reviewe

Effectiveness of Behavioral Graded Activity in Decreasing Functional Limitations in Older Adults with Lower Extremity Osteoarthritis

Introduction & Purpose Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disease and the leading cause of disability in older adults.1 Physical therapy (PT) offers many benefits for patients with OA. Unfortunately, the long-term outcomes for these patients even after receiving PT treatment may be inadequate.2-7 As a profession, we need to continue to explore treatment strategies to improved quality of life. Behavioral Graded Activity (BGA) could be a treatment strategy to utilize

Diel transcriptional oscillations of light-sensitive regulatory elements in open-ocean eukaryotic plankton communities

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Coesel, S. N., Durham, B. P., Groussman, R. D., Hu, S. K., Caron, D. A., Morales, R. L., Ribalet, F., & Armbrust, E. V. Diel transcriptional oscillations of light-sensitive regulatory elements in open-ocean eukaryotic plankton communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(6), (2021): e2011038118, https://doi.org/10.1073./pnas.2011038118.The 24-h cycle of light and darkness governs daily rhythms of complex behaviors across all domains of life. Intracellular photoreceptors sense specific wavelengths of light that can reset the internal circadian clock and/or elicit distinct phenotypic responses. In the surface ocean, microbial communities additionally modulate nonrhythmic changes in light quality and quantity as they are mixed to different depths. Here, we show that eukaryotic plankton in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre transcribe genes encoding light-sensitive proteins that may serve as light-activated transcription factors, elicit light-driven electrical/chemical cascades, or initiate secondary messenger-signaling cascades. Overall, the protistan community relies on blue light-sensitive photoreceptors of the cryptochrome/photolyase family, and proteins containing the Light-Oxygen-Voltage (LOV) domain. The greatest diversification occurred within Haptophyta and photosynthetic stramenopiles where the LOV domain was combined with different DNA-binding domains and secondary signal-transduction motifs. Flagellated protists utilize green-light sensory rhodopsins and blue-light helmchromes, potentially underlying phototactic/photophobic and other behaviors toward specific wavelengths of light. Photoreceptors such as phytochromes appear to play minor roles in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Transcript abundance of environmental light-sensitive protein-encoding genes that display diel patterns are found to primarily peak at dawn. The exceptions are the LOV-domain transcription factors with peaks in transcript abundances at different times and putative phototaxis photoreceptors transcribed throughout the day. Together, these data illustrate the diversity of light-sensitive proteins that may allow disparate groups of protists to respond to light and potentially synchronize patterns of growth, division, and mortality within the dynamic ocean environment.This work was supported by a grant from the Simons Foundation (SCOPE Award 329108 [to E.V.A.]) and XSEDE Grant Allocation OCE160019 (to R.D.G.)

Sexualisation, or the queer feminist provocations of Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus has increasingly occupied debates at the centre of feminist engagements with popular culture. Evoking concerns around young women and ‘sexualisation’, Cyrus emerges as a convergent signifier of sexualised media content and the girl-at-risk. As Cyrus is repeatedly invoked in these debates, she comes to function as the bad object of young femininity. Arguing, however, that Cyrus troubles the sexualisation thesis in the provocations of her creative practice, I suggest that this contested media figure exceeds the frames through which she is read. Thus, I ask: what kinds of insights might be possible if we were to transform the terms on which we approach this figure? Considering a selection of the images and performances that constitute the Cyrus archive, this article proposes a reading of Cyrus as performative provocation. Mobilising an existing sensibility of queer feminist struggle, Cyrus emerges as a disruptive, albeit contradictory, figure. Questions of privilege, limit and possibility emerge in this discussion, as well as what constitutes feminist struggle

Making Structural Change with Relational Power: A Gender Analysis of Faith-Based Community Organizing

This article presents research on faith-based community organizing in the US to examine how congregation members engage in structural change efforts related to marginalized populations. Examining the case of one organizing model, justice ministry, congregations focus on power defined through relationships, cultivated in informal spaces, and communicated through personal narrative (traditionally private, feminine spheres), and change is enacted by creating tension in public (traditionally masculine) spaces with decision-makers. A growing body of literature presents nuanced gender analyses of policy advocacy, social movements, and community change efforts both in terms of strategic models of action and revisiting our understanding of historical movements. We ask questions about how the expectations and work are constrained or facilitated by cultural expectations of gender roles and power dynamics. Examining the organizing model of justice ministry through a gender lens helps to understand how an emphasis on relational power (traditionally gendered as feminine) facilitates and strengthens the use of a range of tools, including publicly challenging authority (more frequently gendered as masculine). While the private/public, feminine/masculine dichotomy has severe limitations and risks oversimplification, the utility remains in helping name and challenge real power differentials based on gender

Housing for the cost burdened: a step toward a just society

Affordable housing is one of Atlanta, Georgia’s most pressing, pervasive, and persistent urban planning crises. Additionally, the advent of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the preexisting affordable housing issues across housing security, demographics, the supply and demand of affordable housing policy, and the health of low-income housing occupants. This report aims to address these issues, as they currently persist in Atlanta, and offer recommendations and considerations for their solutions. This document consists of four sections: Affordable Housing Finance in the City of Atlanta, Wealth Divide and Housing, Homelessness, Health & Hazards. A case study of Atlanta’s Healthy Hotel Project, and the Nexus of Housing, Transit, and Jobs. This report was created by graduate students in the master’s in City and Regional Planning Program (MCRP) at the Georgia Institute of Technology in collaboration with multiple local stakeholders. Though this report will not solve the affordable housing issue in the city of Atlanta, it will address the current conditions and numerous challenges associated with affordable housing in Atlanta and will offer a pointed recommendation to create a path toward solutions for these wicked problems