The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Community Survey, 2006: A Sourcebook of Community Attitudes

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Community Survey (Mat-Su Survey) was a cooperative effort on the part of Mat-Su College, the University of Alaska-Anchorage (UAA) and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough which asked Mat-Su Borough residents to evaluate the quality of Borough services, provide opinions about Borough decision-making, and sum up their perceptions about a range of issues relevant to the present and future of the Mat-Su community. The survey was distributed to every Borough household in the spring of 2006; a total of 2,600 were received, coded, and analyzed for the report. The Sourcebook provides detailed tabular results in six major areas: (1) evaluation of current borough services; (2) use of borough facilities; (3) life in Mat-Su neighborhoods; (4) local government access, policies, and practices; (5) higher education; and (6) respondent background information.Matanuska Susitna BoroughIntroduction / SECTION 1 DETAILED BOROUGH-WIDE RESULTS / Evaluation of Current Borough Services / Use of Borough Facilities / Life in Matanuska-Susitna Borough Neighborhoods / Local Government: Access, Policies and Practices / Higher Education / Respondent Background Information / SECTION 2: RESULTS FOR GEOGRAPHIC AREAS WITHIN THE BOROUGH / Evaluation of Current Borough Services / Use of Borough Facilities / Life in Matanuska-Susitna Borough Neighborhoods / Local Government: Access, Policies and Practices / Higher Education / Respondent Background Information / APPENDIX A: Questionnair

The innovativeness of rural Europe: A contribution to the concept of innovation

Rural Europe faces new challenges in an increasingly globalized economy. There are problems of cost competition, outmigration, an ageing population, dispersed settlements, lack of proximity services and employment opportunities. On the other hand opportunities emerge from new demands of the information society, like a healthy environment and typical products of high quality, or space for creative leisure and learning activities, or like a new look to cultural traditions in agriculture and craftsmanship. At the same time the notion of distance has considerably changed due to new telecommunication technologies. The LEADER community initiative is supporting around 800 local action groups (LAG), especially in Objective 1 or 5b rural areas all around Europe; LAG are public-private, public or more rarely private partnerships carrying ou their specific development programme for a smaller region (between 5000 and 100000 inhabitants). The work group on innovation studied and analysed a large number of innovative actions within, but also outside these LEADER areas. The features of the processes revealed that innovation takes place to an astounding extent, and that their specific character even contributes to a better understanding and further development of the concept of innovation. It can be shown that ? Innovation is not a single action, but does have a global character. The whole cycle of action which it comprises over time, sometimes contain quite ?banal" things, carried out step by step, following the logic of trial and error. The innovation lies in the interlinkages and connections which are created between resources, actors, activities and between the local and the external world. ? A cycle of actions is innovative, if it emerges out of a given context and makes this context irreversibly more complex, more dynamic; it creates more alternatives of action and responses than had been disposable before. ? Innovation has a deeply social character. It is fuelled by ?energetic differentials", resulting from different ?speeds" of the local and the global (in terms of productivity, quality requirements, migration flows, nature degradation,...); it really starts, when local actors start to perceive this differential in a new way. During the process new ways of collective learning and of conflict negotiation arise. Finally new common references, values, visions, attitudes or forms of organisation take shape. ? According to the stage of the process, three types of innovation can be distinguished. The first type relates to the mobilisation of people?s energies in the place. It is not directly creating new jobs and wealth, but prepares the soil for their later emergence. They can be characterized as innovations in facilitation and animation. The second type of innovation channels the energies in order to prepare the field for new, coherent and value adding activities. They deal with village renewal, the establishment of quality charts and organisational restructuring of formerly individually squandering actors. The third type of innovation deals with the creation of filieres in the value adding chain of local resources, moreover with the diversifcaton of the local economy and with creating synergies between formerly separate strands of activities. These innovations consolidate new links to the global and consolidate a new position in the economic competition between regions. These and more facts will be delivered by representatives of the work group on the base of selected case studies. Contribution to Theme A: Regional Economics in Transition: Institutional Development and Socio-Economic Change

Design and in situ testing of a piezometer system to measure earthquake -induced pore -pressure changes

Pore pressure changes have been measured in fine sand deposits that are known to have liquefied during earthquakes. Some of the measured signals have not been similar to what was expected during earthquake-induced liquefaction. Using artificially generated signals, several investigators have attempted to determine if existing piezometer fields designed to measure earthquake induced pore pressure changes are operating correctly. The signals generated during one investigation were not similar to those expected from an earthquake. In another investigation, while the generated signals were similar to ones expected from an earthquake, the results were not reproducible; the generated signals damaged the aquifer being tested and damaged or destroyed some piezometers being tested. This thesis describes the design and field-testing of a piezometer system that allows in situ testing of the screens on the piezometer, and in situ calibration of the transducer. An intergral part of this system is a signal generating system that generates a signal with frequencies similar to those expected from an earthquake. The generated signal has been detected in piezometers at least 20 feet from the source and at depths of at least 15 feet deeper than the source. The signal has been demonstrated to be reproducible through time with no measurable damage to the aquifer or the piezometers. It has been possible to investigate the ability of an existing piezometer field to detect earthquake-like signals and to demonstrate changes over time of some piezometers in their ability to detect earthquake-like signals. A detailed procedure for installing a piezometer array for liquefaction studies is presented

Rotating Magnetometry For Terrestrial And Extraterrestrial Subsurface Explorations

Signaling and sensing with rotating magnet sources have both Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial applications. The dual spinning magnet unit presented in this paper is a simple, lightweight solution to help understand soil densities and locate water and ice pockets, for example, on Mars. Traditional magnetic telemetry systems that use energy-inefficient large induction coils and antennas as sources and receivers are not practical for extraterrestrial and remote field sensing applications. The recent proliferation of strong rare-earth permanent magnets and high-sensitivity magnetometers enables alternative magnetic telemetry system concepts with significantly more compact formats and lower energy consumption. There are also terrestrial applications, for example, subterranean objects such as underground infrastructure and unexploded ordnances (UXO) that are often unmapped and difficult to find on Earth. Current ground penetrating radar units are expensive, large, and heavy. The research presented explores the viability and possibility to develop a unit that will induce an oscillating magnetic field with controllable shape to reliably locate buried ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic objects while remaining lightweight and cost effective. A Dual Rotating Magnet (DRM) design is presented. Experiments and numerical simulations assess the system for terrestrial and extraterrestrial detection of: 1) differences in soil densities, 2) water and ice pockets at shallow depths in the subsurface, and 3) subterranean ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic objects of interest

Other People’s Money: Adapting Entrepreneurial Techniques to Build Capital in Challenging Economic Times

Drawing on the “predator” model of entrepreneurship put forward by Villette and Vuillermot in their 2009 book “From Predators to Icons,” this article argues that challenging economic times reveal that self-funded, collaborative information literacy models have in many cases unsustainably overstretched staff and budgets. In such circumstances, it is necessary for librarians to shift to an entrepreneurial approach that seeks profitable opportunities funded by parties other than the library in order to build capital for current and future instructional services. Following Villette and Vuillermot, the article seeks to refute a cultural myth that sees the entrepreneur as someone who is first and foremost a “do-gooder” or marketer of helpful products, and it also advocates that librarians adopt a view of the entrepreneur as one who preys on unexploited, lowcost/high-profit opportunities to leverage “other people’s money” to build capital for later innovation. The article considers the economics of information literacy and library instruction programs, provides historical context for what has come to be known as the “collaborative imperative,” points to the economic shortsightedness of many collaborative and “embedded librarian” partnerships, and details six examples from information literacy programs that model successful entrepreneurship of the sort argued for

Action Research, Assessment, and Institutional Review Boards (IRB): Conflicting Demands or Productive Tension for the Academic Librarian?

This article puts forward an “assessment/action research/publication” cycle that integrates aspects of the assessment, research, and Institutional Review Board (IRB) processes to provide academic librarians with a systematic approach for balancing competing workplace demands and give library managers a roadmap for creating a “research culture” (Jacobs, Berg, and Cornwall) within their libraries. The article argues that librarians and library managers have much to gain by integrating action research into librarians’ everyday work loads, including increased ease in meeting publication demands for tenure and/or promotion, institutionalizing habits of reflective practice across all library service areas, and overall library improvement

Life Satisfaction: Measurement Invariance and Correlations with Adolescent Adjustment

Background Low life satisfaction during adolescence has been associated with adjustment problems. There are few well-validated measures available to assess adolescents’ life-satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the structure of the Life Satisfaction Scale, evaluate its measurement invariance across sex and race/ethnicity, and investigate its associations with related constructs. Methods Participants were 3,340 adolescents from rural middle schools in Florida. Half the participants were female, 51% were White, 15% were Black, and 22% were Latinx. Adolescents completed the Life Satisfaction Scale, the Children’s Report of Exposure to Violence scale, and the Problem Behavior Frequency Scale. Results Confirmatory factor analysis found support for a single factor representing overall life satisfaction, and strong measurement invariance across race, but not across sex. There were significant differences in item thresholds such that girls at the same level of life satisfaction as boys, were more likely to endorse higher responses to items assessing satisfaction with school, with themselves, and with their friendships. Life satisfaction had significant negative correlations with violence exposure, problem behavior, and peer pressure for drug use. Conclusion Findings suggest that the Life Satisfaction Scale may be suitable for assessing life satisfaction across different groups of adolescents. Examining sex differences must be done cautiously as life satisfaction may have different meanings to boys and girls. The inverse correlations between life satisfaction, violence exposure and problem behavior across groups highlights the importance of developing sound measures to assess this important construct and determine how it relates to youth adjustment.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1076/thumbnail.jp