Teachers guide for building and operating weather satellite ground stations for high school science

A number of colleges and universities are operating APT direct readout stations. However, high school science teachers have often failed to realize the potential of meteorological satellites and their products as unique instructional tools. The ability to receive daily pictures from these satellites offers exciting opportunities for secondary school teachers and students to assemble the electronic hardware and to view real time pictures of Earth from outer space. The station and pictures can be used in the classroom to develop an approach to science teaching that could span many scientific disciplines and offer many opportunities for student research and participation in scientific processes. This can be accomplished with relatively small expenditures of funds for equipment. In most schools some of the equipment may already be available. Others can be constructed by teachers and/or students. Yet another source might be the purchase of used equipment from industry or through the government surplus channels. The information necessary for individuals unfamiliar with these systems to construct a direct readout for receiving real time APT photographs on a daily basis in the classroom is presented

Impacts of Land Use Disturbance on Fish and Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages in the Nolichucky River Watershed

Southern Appalachian watersheds of the United States are negatively affected by pesticides and fertilizers used in row crop agriculture. The objective was to determine if the amount of row crops is connected to changes in aquatic biotic assemblages draining the Nolichucky River watershed in east Tennessee. The hypothesis was the amount of row crops will negatively correlate with indices of biotic integrity (IBI) metrics for fish and benthic macroinvertebrates indicating healthy aquatic communities. For 18 sample sites in 2014 and 2015, IBI metrics were calculated. Water quality and elevation measurements were made before conducting IBIs. To assess changes in and amounts of land use/land cover (LULC), maps from 1999 to 2014 were produced with Landsat satellite imagery. Pollutant estimates (sediment, phosphorus, and nitrogen) were calculated using the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The area of row crops increased since 1999 (39 km2 in 1999 to 71 km2 in 2014). A principal component analysis was performed on LULC measurements from different scales (local, reach and catchment), water quality data, and elevation to produce a reduced set of explanatory variables that were uncorrelated but could be associated with IBI metrics. A canonical correspondence analysis associated fish metrics with LULC types: Impervious surfaces, non-row crop fields, and forest (p = 0.04 for axis 1 eigenvalue, p = 0.05 for species-environment correlations). For the benthic macroinvertebrate metrics, nonmetric multidimensional scaling found metrics indicative of poor stream health (percentage of oligochaetes and chironomids, percentage of nutrient tolerant organisms) were strongly positively associated with increasing use of row crops, impervious surfaces (p ≤ 0.01), and pollutant estimates (p ≤ 0.004). A redundancy analysis found increasing pollutant estimates were associated with fish metrics indicative of poor stream health (percentages of hybrids, piscivores, diseased fish, and number of sunfish species) (p = 0.03). When watersheds of tributary streams are converted to impervious and non-row crop field LULC, they function biologically like the larger main stem river. Although fish and benthic macroinvertebrate metrics indicated the tributary and main stem Nolichucky sites were in relatively good condition, increases in land conversion can further degrade stream biotic integrity

Customer Education in Omnichannel Marketing – A Systematic Literature Review

Purpose – The text aims to present the results of the analysis on the state of knowledge on Customer Education (CE) and propose future research directions in market‑ ing area. The filtering criteria was the chance to apply the gathered information in the marketing area. Research method – The method of the systematic literature review was applied. Regarding customer education keywords, I examined two databases (SCOPUS and Web of Science). Then the results were analysed with the assistance of VOSviewer and using content analysis (qualitative research). A total number of 79 articles was analysed. Results – Customer Education (CE) is rarely examined, especially in marketing. The concept evolves from instructions to co-creation. Bibliographic analysis shows the relation of CE with CX, customer satisfaction and loyalty to the organisation when it aims for internal and external customers. Originality /value/implications/recommendations – Due to the novelty of the problem and its development in business, it is worth stimulating debate on CE in science. The paper aims to fill a gap in literature reviews on the issue and might be a voice in pointing out future research directions. Future research can gravitate toward new channels of CE, learning communities, and the relationship between CE and: customer behaviour, CX, application of AI and data mining, and usage of learning management systems (LMS)[email protected] of LodzAbosag I., Baker T.L., Hall K.L., Voulgari A.-D., Zheng X., 2017, Antecedents and Consequences of Liking in Retail Service Relationships in China and Greece, “International Business Review”, No. 26(3), pp. 566–578. 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Implications of pocket money on young clients’ shopping decisions : international comparison

PURPOSE: The paper’s main goal was to diagnose the customer behaviour of young customers in terms of the pocket money they receive.DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Along with the changes in the role of children in the family, their role in the purchasing process is also growing. Autonomous decisions of children are related not only to the perception of their role in the family but also to the fact that they start receiving pocket money. Despite that – the analysis of children’s customer behaviour is neglected. After the systemic literature review, desk research was conducted (including the scientific papers and business literature).FINDINGS: The key findings were that the amount of money children receive grows as children get older. Young clients prefer spending their money on sweets and toys, but as time passes – they change their preferences toward online products. Similarly, older children more often receive online money instead of cash. Pocket money is correlated positively with overweight, self-destructive behaviours and more extensive economic awareness and knowledge.PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The negative impact of pocket money on children's health, such as increased use of electronic devices and obesity, is also a key element to be addressed through social activities. Corporate social responsibility could strengthen financial education by incorporating health education initiatives.ORIGINALITY/VALUE: A systematic literature review and a desk research method to analyze the spending behavior of children regarding pocket money.peer-reviewe

Determining Follower Aircraft's Optimal Trajectory in Relation to a Dynamic Formation Ring

The specific objective of this paper is to develop a tool that calculates the optimal trajectory of the follower aircraft as it completes a formation rejoin, and then maintains the formation position, defined as a ring of points, until a fixed final time. The tool is designed to produce optimal trajectories for a variety of initial conditions and leader trajectories. Triple integrator dynamics are used to model the follower aircraft in three dimensions. Control is applied directly to the rate of acceleration. Both the follower's and leader's velocities and accelerations are bounded, as dictated by the aircraft's performance envelope. Lastly, a path constraint is used to ensure the follower avoids the leader's jet wash region. This optimal control problem is solved through numerical analysis using the direct orthogonal collocation solver GPOPS-II. Two leader trajectories are investigated, including a descending spiral and continuous vertical loops. Additionally, a study of the effect of various initial guesses is performed. All trajectories displayed a direct capture of the formation position, however changes in solver initial conditions demonstrate various behaviors in how the follower maintains the formation position. The developed tool has proven adequate to support future research in crafting real-time controllers capable of determining near-optimal trajectories.Comment: 11 pages, 20 figures, 2 table

Phenotypical variability of post-partum reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome

Reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome is recognized increasingly as a complication of the postpartum period. Our series of four cases illustrates its phenotypical variability, summarizes the diagnostic work-up, and outlines potential treatment strategies for this usually benign but sometimes disabling and life-threatening disease

Translating surveillance data into incidence estimates

Monitoring a population for a disease requires the hosts to be sampled and tested for the pathogen. This results in sampling series from which we may estimate the disease incidence, i.e. the proportion of hosts infected. Existing estimation methods assume that disease incidence does not change between monitoring rounds, resulting in an underestimation of the disease incidence. In this paper we develop an incidence estimation model accounting for epidemic growth with monitoring rounds that sample varying incidence. We also show how to accommodate the asymptomatic period that is characteristic of most diseases. For practical use, we produce an approximation of the model, which is subsequently shown to be accurate for relevant epidemic and sampling parameters. Both the approximation and the full model are applied to stochastic spatial simulations of epidemics. The results prove their consistency for a very wide range of situations. The estimation model is made available as an online application. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: epidemic forecasting and control’. This theme issue is linked with the earlier issue ‘Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: approaches and important themes’

Multi-Phase Defense by the Big-Headed Ant, Pheidole obtusospinosa, Against Raiding Army Ants

Army ants are well known for their destructive raids of other ant colonies. Some known defensive strategies include nest evacuation, modification of nest architecture, blockade of nest entrances using rocks or debris, and direct combat outside the nest. Since army ants highly prefer Pheidole ants as prey in desert habitats, there may be strong selective pressure on Pheidole to evolve defensive strategies to better survive raids. In the case of P. obtusospinosa Pergande (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), the worker caste system includes super majors in addition to smaller majors and minor workers. Interestingly, P. obtusospinosa and the six other New World Pheidole species described to have polymorphic major workers are all found in the desert southwest and adjacent regions of Mexico, all co-occurring with various species of Neivamyrmex army ants. Pheidole obtusospinosa used a multi-phase defensive strategy against army ant raids that involved their largest major workers. During army ant attacks, these super majors were involved in blocking the nest entrance with their enlarged heads. This is the first description of defensive head-blocking by an ant species that lacks highly modified head morphology, such as a truncated or disc-shaped head. P. obtusospinosa super majors switched effectively between passive headblocking at the nest entrance and aggressive combat outside the nest. If this multi-phase strategy is found to be used by other Pheidole species with polymorphic majors in future studies, it is possible that selective pressure by army ant raids may have been partially responsible for the convergent evolution of this extra worker caste