A Dream Deferred : The Desegregation and Integration of Clemson Athletics

Although Clemson University’s first African-American student, Harvey Gantt, was admitted in 1963, the first African-American athlete did not sign with Clemson until 1969. This thesis assesses the years leading up to athletic desegregation at Clemson University, and explores the alleged barriers to the successful recruitment of African- American athletes at Clemson. While there were legitimate obstacles to signing African- American athletes, such as the academic standards of the Atlantic Coast Conference and the personal preference of African-Americans choosing to go elsewhere, I argue that these barriers alone were insufficient to preclude the signing of an African-American athlete. Despite the open opposition to the desegregation of Clemson University in 1962 and 1963, by 1968 the Clemson students, administrators, and alumni largely supported the recruitment of African-American athletes. This thesis utilizes the conceptual lens of “deep play”, a concept described by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, to demonstrate how the commitment to gaining a competitive advantage in sports trumped the societal and political views of those who transitioned from overt resistance to Gantt to the definite endorsement of recruiting African-American athletes. Despite the popularity of athletics among the Clemson community, the historiography of Clemson athletics and desegregation is minimal, and my research is intended to create a foundation for future research into Clemson’s own history of desegregation and integration within their athletic teams

Vulnerability and adaptation of US shellfisheries to ocean acidification

Ocean acidification is a global, long-term problem whose ultimate solution requires carbon dioxide reduction at a scope and scale that will take decades to accomplish successfully. Until that is achieved, feasible and locally relevant adaptation and mitigation measures are needed. To help to prioritize societal responses to ocean acidification, we present a spatially explicit, multidisciplinary vulnerability analysis of coastal human communities in the United States. We focus our analysis on shelled mollusc harvests, which are likely to be harmed by ocean acidification. Our results highlight US regions most vulnerable to ocean acidification (and why), important knowledge and information gaps, and opportunities to adapt through local actions. The research illustrates the benefits of integrating natural and social sciences to identify actions and other opportunities while policy, stakeholders and scientists are still in relatively early stages of developing research plans and responses to ocean acidification.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the Nature Publishing Group and can be found at: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html

Panel 6 : Vaccines

Objective. To review the literature on progress regarding (1) effectiveness of vaccines for prevention of otitis media (OM) and (2) development of vaccine antigens for OM bacterial and viral pathogens. Data Sources. PubMed database of the National Library of Science. Review Methods. We performed literature searches in PubMed for OM pathogens and candidate vaccine antigens, and we restricted the searches to articles in English that were published between July 2011 and June 2015. Panel members reviewed literature in their area of expertise. Conclusions. Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) are somewhat effective for the prevention of pneumococcal OM, recurrent OM, OM visits, and tympanostomy tube insertions. Widespread use of PCVs has been associated with shifts in pneumococcal serotypes and bacterial pathogens associated with OM, diminishing PCV effectiveness against AOM. The 10-valent pneumococcal vaccine containing Haemophilus influenzae protein D (PHiD-CV) is effective for pneumococcal OM, but results from studies describing the potential impact on OM due to H influenzae have been inconsistent. Progress in vaccine development for H influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis, and OM-associated respiratory viruses has been limited. Additional research is needed to extend vaccine protection to additional pneumococcal serotypes and other otopathogens. There are likely to be licensure challenges for protein-based vaccines, and data on correlates of protection for OM vaccine antigens are urgently needed. Implications for Practice. OM continues to be a significant health care burden globally. Prevention is preferable to treatment, and vaccine development remains an important goal. As a polymicrobial disease, OM poses significant but not insurmountable challenges for vaccine development.Peer reviewe

Coral reefs and people in a high-CO2 world: where can science make a difference to people?

Reefs and People at Risk: Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere put shallow, warm-water coral reef ecosystems, and the people who depend upon them at risk from two key global environmental stresses: 1) elevated sea surface temperature (that can cause coral bleaching and related mortality), and 2) ocean acidification. These global stressors: cannot be avoided by local management, compound local stressors, and hasten the loss of ecosystem services. Impacts to people will be most grave where a) human dependence on coral reef ecosystems is high, b) sea surface temperature reaches critical levels soonest, and c) ocean acidification levels are most severe. Where these elements align, swift action will be needed to protect people's lives and livelihoods, but such action must be informed by data and science.\ud \ud An Indicator Approach: Designing policies to offset potential harm to coral reef ecosystems and people requires a better understanding of where CO2-related global environmental stresses could cause the most severe impacts. Mapping indicators has been proposed as a way of combining natural and social science data to identify policy actions even when the needed science is relatively nascent. To identify where people are at risk and where more science is needed, we map indicators of biological, physical and social science factors to understand how human dependence on coral reef ecosystems will be affected by globally-driven threats to corals expected in a high-CO2 world. Western Mexico, Micronesia, Indonesia and parts of Australia have high human dependence and will likely face severe combined threats. As a region, Southeast Asia is particularly at risk. Many of the countries most dependent upon coral reef ecosystems are places for which we have the least robust data on ocean acidification. These areas require new data and interdisciplinary scientific research to help coral reef-dependent human communities better prepare for a high CO2 world

Country-level dependence on coral reef ecosystem services and future risk of coral bleaching.

<p>Bleaching risk is indicated by the year when DHW8 is first reached annually, under RCP8.5 scenario [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0164699#pone.0164699.ref024" target="_blank">24</a>,<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0164699#pone.0164699.ref025" target="_blank">25</a>]. Ocean Provinces are indicated in each panel in bold. Earlier years indicate increased bleaching risk.</p

Regional dependence, by ocean province [49], on ecosystem services and average CO₂-related threats (ocean acidification measured as projected Ω_ar levels at coral reefs in 2050 and elevated sea surface temperature as measured by year that 8 DHW are projected to occur annually).

<p>The horizontal line in the threats panel represents the mean threat for all regions (scores above this line indicate above average severity of threat). The scales for the reef fish dependence scores are broken to reduce the size of the graph. Note that the Great Barrier Reef Ocean Province includes, but is not limited to, the Great Barrier Reef.</p

Scores of human dependence on coral reef ecosystem services, by country.

<p>Panel A provides the normalized scores for human dependence on shoreline protection, Panel B shows the normalized scores for dependence on reef fisheries, and Panel C shows combined human dependence. All scores are normalized on a scale from 0–10. Higher scores reflect higher human dependence. Countries are binned by quintile in the legend.</p

Raw data and results of the normalized scoring for human dependence, by country (only countries for which data are available are shown).

<p>Ocean Provinces: Brazilian (B), Caribbean (C), Central Pacific (CP), Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Central Indian Ocean (CIO), Eastern Pacific (EP), Middle East (ME), Polynesia (P), South East Asia (SEA), Western Australia (WA), Western Indian Ocean (WIO).</p

Country-level dependence on coral reef ecosystem services and future combined normalized scores (2–20) for CO₂-related threats (e.g. ocean acidification and thermal stress).

<p>Ocean Provinces are indicated in each panel in bold. Higher scores indicate higher dependence and higher ecological risk.</p

A conceptual diagram linking stresses related to increased atmospheric CO₂ (elevated sea surface temperature and ocean acidification), storms, and local stressors to coral reef condition, selected ecosystem services provided by reefs, and human dependence on these ecosystem services.

<p>Solid lines represent relationships evaluated in this study.</p