The Adaptive Venue Shopping Framework: How Emergent Groups Choose Environmental Policymaking Venues

Scholars have succeeded in producing several explanations for why groups choose to pursue their policymaking goals in different venues. A synthetic framework that explains the choices these groups make is developed through two case studies describing a conflict over the environmental problem of agricultural field burning. Emergent, boundedly rational, groups with a mission to clear the air of the pollutants associated with field burning, are found to be choosing venues by strategically assessing the institutional context. The particular institutional context that matters involves three primary elements: the group’s mix of resources, opponents’ resource strengths, and the degree of venue accessibility. These initial choices allow groups to generate new resources, to learn about which strategies do and do not work, and to change venues on the basis of their new resources and what they have learned

Policy Change and Venue Choices: Field Burning in Idaho and Washington

Grass seed farmers have burned their fields in Idaho and Washington State for decades. Field burning, however, creates small particulate matter air pollution, thus engendering a growing public backlash by the 1990s that manifested itself in new clean air advocacy groups. The new groups’ push for policy change eventually met with significant success in both cases. How did each set of advocates approach the challenge of policy change? More specifically, what kinds of policy venues did each group choose and why? This research uses the cases to explore and explain each clean air group\u27s choices vis-à-vis hypotheses of venue choice. Three hypotheses are tested—Schattschneider\u27s (1960) “expanded scope of conflict” thesis, ACF\u27s (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999) contention that groups strategically apply their resources in order to increase the likelihood of achieving their primary goal(s), and Pralle\u27s (2003, 2010) thesis that internal group constraints deter groups from moving into new venues

Keeping Public Colleges Affordable: A Study of Persistence in Indiana\u27s Public Colleges and Universities

It is important for states to assess periodically the effects of student aid on persistence in the public systems of higher education. Recently, a workable persistence model has emerged that can be used for this purpose. This paper uses the model to examine the influence of student aid on persistence by full-time resident undergraduates enrolled in Indiana\u27s public system of higher education during the 1997-98 academic year. The analysis reveals that student financial aid was adequate, largely due to a substantial state investment in need-based grants

How to harness the full potential of integrated catchment management as a pathway to sustainability

Water resource management authorities globally are increasingly adopting regional ecosystem approaches and reflexive governance as pathways to sustainable development (Paton et al., 2004; Vos et al.,2006). An integrated collaborative approach to natural resource management at the catchment scale is a strong theme in the recent literature (e.g., Lovell et al. 2002; Painter & Memon, 2008). New Zealand’s Resource Management Act (RMA), enacted in 1991, is a devolved planning mandate forintegrated natural resource management exercised by elected regional councils. The territorial jurisdiction of regional councils established in 1988 was purposely defined on the basis of groups of large water catchments (including groundwater aquifers) to facilitate an integrated approach to natural resource management. Integrated management of water allocation, water quality and related land management are primary functions of regional councils. However, regional councils have shied away from exercising their devolved integrated water planning mandate at the subregional catchment scale. Instead, provisions of first generation regional water plans tend to be framed region-wide in scope. In some plans, water quality and quantity issues are addressed separately with limited linkages, a reflection of poor integration

Catheter ablation of accessory atrioventricular pathways in young patients: Use of long vascular sheaths, the transseptal approach and a retrograde left posterior parallel approach

AbstractObjectives. This study retrospectively assesses the technical aspects of the catheter techniques used to ablate 83 accessory atrioventricular (AV) pathways during 88 procedures in 71 pediatric and adult patients (median age 14 years, range 1 month to 55 years). A number of catheter approaches and techniques evolved that may have improved success and shortened procedure times.Background. Radiofrequency catheter ablation of accessory AV pathways can be highly successful. However, the technical difficulty of many of the procedures is masked by the success rate.Methods. Left free wall, right free wall and septal accessory pathways were ablated with a variety of approaches.Results. Left free wall pathways were ablated successfully by using a standard retrograde approach through the aortic valve in only 10 (24%) of 43 cases. The remaining 33 (76%) required an approach that was either retrograde through the mitral valve (2 of 33), transseptal (21 of 33) or retrograde where the catheter was advanced behind the posterior mitral leaflet at the point of mitral-aortic continuity, so that the catheter course was parallelrather than perpendicularto the mitral anulus (10 of 33). Nineteen of 20 septal pathways were ablated successfully by using either the parallel approach (2 of 29), a transseptal approach (2 of 19), ablation within the coronary sinus or one of its veins (8 of 19) or ablation on the atrial side of the tricuspid valve (7 of 19). Fifteen of 20 right free wall pathways were ablated successfully with a variety of approaches on both the atrial and the ventricular side of the tricuspid valve. Long vascular sheaths were judged to contribute directly to success in 33 (43%) of 77 pathways. The overall success rate has been 93% (77 of 83 pathways), with 100% success for left free wall (43 of 43), 75% for right free wall (15 of 20) and 95% for septal pathways (19 of 20).Conclusions. Thus, successful ablation of accessory AV pathways in a mixed group of pediatric and adult patients appears to benefit from a wide range of vascular and catheter approaches

GRAIL Refinements to Lunar Seismic Structure

A method to enhance and detect subtle seismic arrivals typically used in terrestrial seismology, is to stack seismograms that have been time shifted to the predicted arrival time of a hypothetical phase of interest. We previously applied this array processing approach to the Apollo lunar seismic data, providing the first direct constraint on the size and state of the Moon's core. The method used travel time predictions made from pre-existing estimates of the crust and mantle velocities and densities and assumed that each of the Moons layers ia a uniform shell with no lateral variation or heterogeneity. In reality the structural properties of the Moon are likely inhomogeneous and vary both laterally and with depth

Pointing control for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope

We present the technology and control methods developed for the pointing system of the SPIDER experiment. SPIDER is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to detect the imprint of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. We describe the two main components of the telescope's azimuth drive: the reaction wheel and the motorized pivot. A 13 kHz PI control loop runs on a digital signal processor, with feedback from fibre optic rate gyroscopes. This system can control azimuthal speed with < 0.02 deg/s RMS error. To control elevation, SPIDER uses stepper-motor-driven linear actuators to rotate the cryostat, which houses the optical instruments, relative to the outer frame. With the velocity in each axis controlled in this way, higher-level control loops on the onboard flight computers can implement the pointing and scanning observation modes required for the experiment. We have accomplished the non-trivial task of scanning a 5000 lb payload sinusoidally in azimuth at a peak acceleration of 0.8 deg/s$^2$, and a peak speed of 6 deg/s. We can do so while reliably achieving sub-arcminute pointing control accuracy.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, Presented at SPIE Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V, June 23, 2014. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume 914

ACR Appropriateness Criteria® Non-Spine Bone Metastases

Bone metastases are a common clinical problem, affecting many types of cancer patients. The presence of tumor in bone can cause significant morbidity including pain, neurological dysfunction, hypercalcemia, and pathological fracture leading to functional loss. The optimal treatment of a patient with bone metastases depends on many factors, including evaluation of the patient's goals of care, performance status, mechanical stability of the affected bone, life expectancy, and overall extent of disease. Treatment options may include radiotherapy, systemic therapies, surgical stabilization, medical pain management, and radiopharmaceuticals. Ideal management of bone metastases requires a coordinated multidisciplinary approach among diagnostic radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, orthopedic surgeons, pain specialists, physiatrists, and palliative care specialists. The American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria? are evidence-based guidelines for specific clinical conditions that are reviewed every 3 years by a multidisciplinary expert panel. The guidelines development and review include an extensive analysis of current medical literature from peer-reviewed journals and the application of a well-established consensus methodology (modified Delphi) to rate the appropriateness of imaging and treatment procedures by the panel. In those instances where evidence is lacking or not definitive, expert opinion may be used to recommend imaging or treatment.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140118/1/jpm.2014.9395.pd

Where constructionism and critical realism converge: interrogating the domain of epistemological relativism

The paper interrogates the status, nature and significance of epistemological relativism as a key element of constructionism and critical realism. It finds that epistemological relativism is espoused by authorities in critical realism and marginalized or displaced in the field of management and organization studies, resulting in forms of analysis that are empirically, but not fully critically, realist. This evaluation prompts reflection on the question of whether, how and with what implications epistemological relativism might be recast at the heart of critical realist studies of management and organization

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Spring 2010

Seed removal rates of Sahara mustard by rodents and ants, Mojave Desert Network exotic invasive inventory, gypsum roadside disturbance restoration update, new paper out on post-fire plant establishment, UNLV establishes school of environmental and public affair