411 research outputs found
The Dichotomy Of Conservation â Managing Elk In The Wildland/Urban Interface Of Missoula, Montana
The Missoula Valley in western Montana is home to nearly 800 wintering elk (Cervus elaphus), including the North Hills, Evaro, Jumbo, OâBrien Creek and Miller Creek herds. With the City of Missoula as the hub, the Valley has experienced substantial human population growth over the last 30 yrs. This increased growth and subsequent development has consumed and fragmented wildlife habitat and placed additional recreational demands on adjacent public lands. Wildlife biologists with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks have worked cooperatively with local governments, federal agencies, land trusts, other non-governmental organizations, and the general public to conserve and protect important elk winter range and habitat connectivity within the wildland/urban interface of the Missoula Valley. From a biological perspective, we have been extremely successful in managing for the persistence of elk populations. However, protecting winter range adjacent to and fragmented by human development has additional management challenges and costs. Since 1980, the North Hills elk herd has grown an average of 11 percent per year, with a 48-percent growth rate occurring between 2000 and 2007. Without an effective harvest, this population is expected to double in less than seven years. To protect elk winter range and to continue to keep elk wild, wildlife biologists have needed to become more creative with their management and conservation strategies. This presentation discusses those strategies, as well as the dichotomy of conserving elk winter range and managing elk on human developed landscapes
Youth perceptions of prevention norms and peer violence perpetration and victimization: A prospective analysis
The purpose of the current study is to prospectively examine the extent to which social norms perceptions regarding commitment to ending sexual violence are associated with subsequent peer victimization and perpetration experiences. Two types of social norms perceptions were examined: 1) peer norms (perceptions of norms among other students in their city), and 2) adult norms (perceptions of norms among adults in their city). Participants were 1259 middle and high school youth from a single school district (three high schools and five middle schools) who completed online surveys at twoâtime points, 6 months apart. Adolescents for whom perceptions of peer norms were one standard deviation or more above and below the mean of actual norms were âoverâperceiversâ and âunderâperceivers,â respectively. Overperceivers overestimated their peersâ commitment to ending sexual violence, whereas underperceivers underestimated their peersâ commitment to ending sexual violence. Other adolescents were âaccurate perceiversâ; these adolescents were accurate in their estimation of their peersâ commitment to ending sexual violence. In general, underperceivers (22.2% of the sample) were more likely than accurate perceivers (77.8% of the sample) to subsequently experience peerâtoâpeer perpetration and victimization. Adolescents who perceived adults to have a higher commitment to ending sexual violence were less likely to report subsequent perpetration and victimization for some forms of peer-toâpeer violence. These findings highlight the potential promise of the social norms approaches to prevent peerâtoâpeer violence among youth which aligns with increasing calls in the field to integrate these approaches into comprehensive sexual violence prevention
âA double-edged sword. This is powerful but it could be used destructivelyâ: Perspectives of early career education researchers on learning analytics
Learning analytics has been increasingly outlined as a powerful tool for measuring, analysing, and predicting learning experiences and behaviours. The rising use of learning analytics means that many educational researchers now require new ranges of technical analytical skills to contribute to an increasingly data-heavy field. However, it has been argued that educational data scientists are a âscarce breedâ (Buckingham Shum et al., 2013) and that more resources are needed to support the next generation of early career researchers in the education field. At the same time, little is known about how early career education researchers feel towards learning analytics and whether it is important to their current and future research practices. Using a thematic analysis of a participatory learning analytics workshop discussions with 25 early career education researchers, we outline in this article their ambitions, challenges and anxieties towards learning analytics. In doing so, we have provided a roadmap for how the learning analytics field might evolve and practical implications for supporting early career researchersâ development
Monitoring metrics over time: Why clinical trialists need to systematically collect site performance metrics
Background: Over the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in risk-based monitoring (RBM) in clinical trials, resulting in a number of guidelines from regulators and its inclusion in ICH GCP. However, there is a lack of detail on how to approach RBM from a practical perspective, and insufficient understanding of best practice.
Purpose: We present a method for clinical trials units to track their metrics within clinical trials using descriptive statistics and visualisations.
Research Design: We suggest descriptive statistics and visualisations within a SWAT methodology.
Study Sample: We illustrate this method using the metrics from TEMPER, a monitoring study carried out in three trials at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL.
Data Collection: The data collection for TEMPER is described in DOI: 10.1177/1740774518793379.
Results: We show the results and discuss a protocol for a Study-Within-A-Trial (SWAT 167) for those wishing to use the method.
Conclusions: The potential benefits metric tracking brings to clinical trials include enhanced assessment of sites for potential corrective action, improved evaluation and contextualisation of the influence of metrics and their thresholds, and the establishment of best practice in RBM. The standardisation of the collection of such monitoring data would benefit both individual trials and the clinical trials community
Improving Social Norms and Actions to Prevent Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence: A Pilot Study of the Impact of Green Dot Community on Youth
Sexual violence (SV) and intimate partner violence (IPV), which often cooccur with bullying, are serious public health issues underscoring the need for primary prevention. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a community-building SV and IPV prevention program, Green Dot Community, on adolescentsâ perceptions of community social norms and their propensity to intervene as helpful actionists using two independent data sources. Green Dot Community takes place in towns and aims to influence all town members to prevent SV and IPV by addressing protective factors (i.e., collective efficacy, positive prevention social norms, and bystander helping, or actionism). In the current study, one town received Green Dot Community (the prevention-enhanced town), and two towns received prevention as usual (i.e., awareness and fundraising events by local IPV and SV advocacy centers). The program was evaluated using a two-part method: (a) A cross-sectional sample of high school students from three rural communities provided assessment of protective factors at two time points (Time 1, n = 1,187; Time 2, n = 877) and (b) Youth Risk Behavior Survey data from the state Department of Health were gathered before and after program implementation (Time 1, n = 2,034; Time 2, n = 2,017) to assess victimization rates. Youth in the prevention-enhanced town reported higher collective efficacy and more positive social norms specific to helping in situations of SV and IPV over time but did not differ on bystander behaviors or on victimization rates. Community-based prevention initiatives may be helpful in changing community norms to prevent SV/IPV
Preventing Teen Relationship Abuse and Sexual Assault through Bystander Training: Intervention Outcomes for School Personnel
The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of exposure to Bringing in the BystanderâHigh School Curriculum (BITB-HSC) on school personnel, which included a seven session classroom curriculum for ninth through twelfth graders (student curriculum), a bystander training workshop for school personnel (school personnel workshop), and reading materials (handout). We examined how exposure to these various BITB-HSC intervention components was associated with school personnelâs knowledge and bystander efïŹcacy, intentions, and barriers speciïŹc to student relationship abuse (RA) and sexual assault (SA). Participants were 488 school personnel from 12 high schools in upper New England who completed the 4-month follow-up survey that assessed for intervention exposure (284 participants completed both the baseline and follow-up survey). Whereas 53% of participants were exposed to no intervention components, the other half of the sample were exposed to a combination of intervention components. Higher baseline knowledge and reactive bystander intentions were associated with subsequent exposure to both the student curriculum and the handout, and fewer barriers to bystander action predicted exposure to the school personnel workshop. Exposure to the school personnel workshop, student curriculum, and handout was associated with subsequent greater knowledge, exposure to the student curriculum predicted reactive bystander intentions, and exposure to the handout predicted higher reactive bystander intentions and bystander efïŹcacy. Findings suggest that despite challenges with engagement, exposure to the BITB-HSC components may be a useful tool in improving school personnelâs responses to RA and SA among high school students
Lack of transparent reporting of trial monitoring approaches in randomised controlled trials: A systematic review of contemporary protocol papers
Background:
Monitoring is essential to ensure patient safety and data integrity in clinical trials as per Good Clinical Practice. The Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials Statement and its checklist guides authors to include monitoring in their protocols. We investigated how well monitoring was reported in published âprotocol papersâ for contemporary randomised controlled trials.
Methods:
A systematic search was conducted in PubMed to identify eligible protocol papers published in selected journals between 1 January 2020 and 31 May 2020. Protocol papers were classified by whether they reported monitoring and, if so, by the details of monitoring. Data were summarised descriptively.
Results:
Of 811 protocol papers for randomised controlled trials, 386 (48%; 95% CI: 44%â51%) explicitly reported some monitoring information. Of these, 20% (77/386) reported monitoring information consistent with an on-site monitoring approach, and 39% (152/386) with central monitoring, 26% (101/386) with a mixed approach, while 14% (54/386) did not provide sufficient information to specify an approach. Only 8% (30/386) of randomised controlled trials reported complete details about all of scope, frequency and organisation of monitoring; frequency of monitoring was the least reported. However, 6% (25/386) of papers used the term âauditâ to describe âmonitoringâ.
Discussion:
Monitoring information was reported in only approximately half of the protocol papers. Suboptimal reporting of monitoring hinders the clinical community from having the full information on which to judge the validity of a trial and jeopardises the value of protocol papers and the credibility of the trial itself. Greater efforts are needed to promote the transparent reporting of monitoring to journal editors and authors
- âŠ