Mind the Gap: A Case Study in Instructor Intention and Feedback

While effective instructor written feedback is critical, the process is often the least understood and is a detriment to student success when improperly applied. This case study identifies strategies that characterize successful instructor written feedback for students\u27 written assignments in an introductory college composition course. My research examines instructor feedback within the diverse environment of the community college thus highlighting the importance of instructor knowledge of composition pedagogy and feedback methods and approaches. A review of literature on instructor feedback identifies instructor and student collaboration as a key component for success together with understanding of historical trends in the field of composition studies. This case study includes five individual interviews with introductory composition community college instructors and a textual analysis of twenty samples of formative and summative instructor feedback to student submissions . Bloom \u27s Taxonomy is used to graph alignment of stated instructor goals in relation to resulting written feedback. Study findings reveal a discrepancy or gap between instructor approaches to and goals for feedback and the resulting written feedback. An evaluation of the gap between the instructor approach and the resulting written feedback helped develop implications for teaching in any introductory composition course. The implications of the study reveal that understanding various approaches when setting goals and providing written feedback together with knowledge of the history of composition pedagogy are powerful tools in the introductory composition course

A social network analysis of actors involved in wild pig (\u3ci\u3eSus scrofa\u3c/i\u3e) management in Missouri

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) cause significant damage to agriculture and native ecosystems and can transmit diseases to animals and people. Management responses designed to reduce population numbers are needed to mitigate these threats. Identifying networks of key actors, including the ways in which they interact, is valuable for purposes of better understanding opportunities or constraints that generate or impede effective management responses. The goal of our study was to understand the network of organizations, and the personnel working within them, that were active in wild pig management, research, or policy initiatives in Missouri during 2018–2020 by 1) identifying individuals and organizations involved in the network, 2) investigating the attributes of relevant personnel, 3) determining the structural patterns of the network, and 4) examining how the network structure could be optimized to improve communication and collaboration efforts. Results from a social network analysis identified 150 personnel affiliated with 26 organizations actively working on wild pig issues in Missouri. The network was largely homogenous based on respondents\u27 attributes, had low density, and was relatively fragmented, small, decentralized with few ties per node, and separated with few brokers. We emphasize the importance of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a network\u27s structure in facilitating effective collective action to manage wild pigs

Taking stories: The ethics of cross-cultural community conservation research in Samburu, Kenya

Biodiversity is under threat at a global level, and many of the most biodiverse hotspots are in developing regions of the world. In many of these communities, livelihoods are often dependent on the same natural landscapes that support biodiversity. As a result, achieving global conservation and development goals is a priority in these regions, and therefore they attract the interest of both local and international researchers. However, research by outside, Western-based researchers can present ethical and practical challenges in these areas. Fortunately, community-based participatory research (CBPR), if managed well, can contribute to responsible conservation research in these regions. In this article, we investigate strategies to address ethical issues associated with cross-cultural conservation and development research. Our analysis draws on the experiences of a women’s village in northern Kenya and six Western researchers. Using qualitative methodologies, we identify common themes in ethical conservation and develop research including critical consciousness, relationship-building, reciprocity, and adaptive research processes. We discuss the implications for ethical CBPR and, specifically, the need for both researchers and funders to only conduct such research if they can devote the resources required to do so ethically.&nbsp

Lincoln Heights, Chatham County : a community diagnosis including secondary data analysis and qualitative data collection

This document is a result of a community diagnosis of Lincoln Heights, a community in Siler City, North Carolina. The diagnosis was completed by four graduate students from the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Community diagnosis is a process to understand what it is like to live in a given community. The process involves examining the culture and functioning of a community, exploring its strengths and assets, and discovering issues of concern to the community members. To gain a better understanding of Lincoln Heights, the first part of the project involved gathering census data for the community, county, and state. Secondary data was collected on the neighborhood's economics, history, environment, housing, education, health concerns, and other social issues, and then compared to county and state figures. There were limitations to these methods of data collection. Wherever possible, data was collected on a community or town level. However, most of the health and community profile data was available only on a county-wide basis or by block group and may not be representative of the Lincoln Heights community, a very small neighborhood within the county. Data that is representative of Chatham County, and not necessarily Lincoln Heights, is so identified in the community profile and health sections of the document. Limitations to collecting secondary data included a lack of current information, especially with regard to immigration statistics and demographic characteristics. Another problem encountered was the lack of identification of statistics for Latinos within the specified census race categories, resulting in difficulty in distinguishing various racial indicators. To obtain a more accurate picture of the community, the second portion of the project focused on a qualitative assessment of community members' opinions on the quality of life in Lincoln Heights. Interviews contained personal background questions as well as questions about life in the Lincoln Heights community. Questions were asked about the strengths and weaknesses of the community to determine what issues could be addressed in the future. Service provider questions focused on the type of services provided as well as the provider’s perspective on the competence of the Lincoln Heights community. The interview process was approved by the University of North Carolina School of Public Health Institutional Review Board (IRB), which must approve all requests from School of Public Health students or faculty to conduct research on human subjects. Interviews began in November 1997 and concluded in January 1998. Members of the community diagnosis team interviewed 23 community members and eight service providers. In addition, 46 community members completed short surveys on two separate occasions, and two focus groups were held in the community. Interviews focused primarily on the strengths of the community, as well as issues of concern, including housing, recreation, substance abuse, and the growth of the Latino population in the neighborhood. The community diagnosis process concluded in February with a community forum. A comprehensive report on the Forum is included in Appendix E of this document. Limitations in the qualitative data collection process included time constraints imposed by the IRB process. The “snowball” sampling process of obtaining referrals yielded a homogeneous group, and difficulties in gaining entree to other, less accessible, community members. These two things were a barrier to gaining the perspective of a more representative sample. Finally, building the trust necessary to gain full disclosure about sensitive issues in a community is a long, ongoing process and takes more time than the community diagnosis process allows. This document was produced to present back to the community the comprehensive findings of the team about the Lincoln Heights community. The first half of the document includes sections representing our secondary data collection and analysis. Chapters include: Geography, History, Economic Outlook, Community Profile, and Health. The second half contains a review of qualitative data collected from interviews and is divided into chapters representing the salient issues facing the community, including: Community Assets and Resources, Education, Politics and Government, Immigration, Crime and Safety, Drugs, Housing, Recreation, and A Changing Climate. During the interview process, community members shared with us many of their views, experiences, and concerns about life in Lincoln Heights. Some of the strengths and challenges that were identified as most important to the community are: Commitment to Community: Members of the community are very active in the community and committed to Lincoln Heights. They also belong to, and take pride in, several strong local associations and organizations. Their affiliation with church and religious organizations is an important part of their lives. Family Ties: The Lincoln Heights neighborhood has an extensive history, with multiple generation families still living there. There are bonds and family ties that run deep in the community. Community Involvement: The strengths of commitment and roots in Lincoln Heights have led to several successful endeavors and achievements. Growth of Latino Population: Over the past several years, the size of the Latino population has grown significantly in Lincoln Heights. This growth has impacted community resources, schools, and community services, as well as introduced difficulties in communication due to a language barrier. Housing: The community continues to experience a shortage of affordable housing and expressed concerns about the condition of some of the homes and trailers in the neighborhood. Youth Recreation: Community members expressed concerns about a lack of recreation for the youth of the neighborhood. Crime and Drugs: Substance abuse was also indicated as a problem, both with the use and sale of illegal drugs occurring within the neighborhood. Future Directions and Conclusions Although numerous issues still exist in Lincoln Heights, much has changed since the last community diagnosis was completed there in 1994. Concerned citizens from the neighborhood have worked hard to build a healthier community and throughout this document we have tried to highlight their successes. Two organizations in particular have impacted the quality of life for residents, the Lincoln Heights Improvement Association and the Chatham Alumni Advancement Association. As was mentioned previously, the Lincoln Heights Improvement Association has played a vital role in the neighborhood by building Washington Park and also by demonstrating that a small group of concerned residents could affect change. The Chatham Alumni Advancement Association also showed that strength in numbers could work when they pressured the local government to give them part of the old Chatham Middle School for use as a cultural center. Both of these groups have proved themselves capable of taking on the issues that face the neighborhood, and winning. It is our hope that these groups will continue to thrive and that they will be able to use this document to steer their course of action in the future.Master of Public Healt

Risks of introduction and economic consequences associated with African swine fever, classical swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease: A review of the literature

African swine fever (ASF), classical swine fever (CSF) and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) are considered to be three of the most detrimental animal diseases and are currently foreign to the U.S. Emerging and re-emerging pathogens can have tremendous impacts in terms of livestock morbidity and mortality events, production losses, forced trade restrictions, and costs associated with treatment and control. The United States is the world\u27s top producer of beef for domestic and export use and the world\u27s third-largest producer and consumer of pork and pork products; it has also recently been either the world\u27s largest or second largest exporter of pork and pork products. Understanding the routes of introduction into the United States and the potential economic impact of each pathogen are crucial to (a) allocate resources to prevent routes of introduction that are believed to be more probable, (b) evaluate cost and efficacy of control methods and (c) ensure that protections are enacted to minimize impact to the most vulnerable industries. With two scoping literature reviews, pulled from global data, this study assesses the risk posed by each disease in the event of a viral introduction into the United States and illustrates what is known about the economic costs and losses associated with an outbreak

The surprisingly low carbon mass in the debris disk around HD 32297

Gas has been detected in a number of debris disks. It is likely secondary, i.e. produced by colliding solids. Here, we report ALMA Band 8 observations of neutral carbon in the CO-rich debris disk around the 15--30 Myr old A-type star HD 32297. We find that C$^0$ is located in a ring at $\sim$110 au with a FWHM of $\sim$80 au, and has a mass of $(3.5\pm0.2)\times10^{-3}$ M$_\oplus$. Naively, such a surprisingly small mass can be accumulated from CO photo-dissociation in a time as short as $\sim$10$^4$ yr. We develop a simple model for gas production and destruction in this system, properly accounting for CO self-shielding and shielding by neutral carbon, and introducing a removal mechanism for carbon gas. We find that the most likely scenario to explain both C$^0$ and CO observations, is one where the carbon gas is rapidly removed on a timescale of order a thousand years and the system maintains a very high CO production rate of $\sim$15 M$_\oplus$ Myr$^{-1}$, much higher than the rate of dust grind-down. We propose a possible scenario to meet these peculiar conditions: the capture of carbon onto dust grains, followed by rapid CO re-formation and re-release. In steady state, CO would continuously be recycled, producing a CO-rich gas ring that shows no appreciable spreading over time. This picture might be extended to explain other gas-rich debris disks.Comment: accepted for publication in the Ap

Empirical Constraints on Turbulence in Protoplanetary Accretion Disks

We present arcsecond-scale Submillimeter Array observations of the CO(3-2) line emission from the disks around the young stars HD 163296 and TW Hya at a spectral resolution of 44 m/s. These observations probe below the ~100 m/s turbulent linewidth inferred from lower-resolution observations, and allow us to place constraints on the turbulent linewidth in the disk atmospheres. We reproduce the observed CO(3-2) emission using two physical models of disk structure: (1) a power-law temperature distribution with a tapered density distribution following a simple functional form for an evolving accretion disk, and (2) the radiative transfer models developed by D'Alessio et al. that can reproduce the dust emission probed by the spectral energy distribution. Both types of models yield a low upper limit on the turbulent linewidth (Doppler b-parameter) in the TW Hya system (<40 m/s), and a tentative (3-sigma) detection of a ~300 m/s turbulent linewidth in the upper layers of the HD 163296 disk. These correspond to roughly <10% and 40% of the sound speed at size scales commensurate with the resolution of the data. The derived linewidths imply a turbulent viscosity coefficient, alpha, of order 0.01 and provide observational support for theoretical predictions of subsonic turbulence in protoplanetary accretion disks.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Stringent Limits on the Polarized Submillimeter Emission from Protoplanetary Disks

We present arcsecond-resolution Submillimeter Array (SMA) polarimetric observations of the 880 um continuum emission from the protoplanetary disks around two nearby stars, HD 163296 and TW Hydrae. Although previous observations and theoretical work have suggested that a 2-3% polarization fraction should be common for the millimeter continuum emission from such disks, we detect no polarized continuum emission above a 3-sigma upper limit of 7 mJy in each arcsecond-scale beam, or <1% in integrated continuum emission. We compare the SMA upper limits with the predictions from the exploratory Cho & Lazarian (2007) model of polarized emission from T Tauri disks threaded by toroidal magnetic fields, and rule out their fiducial model at the ~10-sigma level. We explore some potential causes for this discrepancy, focusing on model parameters that describe the shape, magnetic field alignment, and size distribution of grains in the disk. We also investigate related effects like the magnetic field strength and geometry, scattering off of large grains, and the efficiency of grain alignment, including recent advances in grain alignment theory, which are not considered in the fiducial model. We discuss the impact each parameter would have on the data and determine that the suppression of polarized emission plausibly arises from rounding of large grains, reduced efficiency of grain alignment with the magnetic field, and/or some degree of magnetic field tangling (perhaps due to turbulence). A poloidal magnetic field geometry could also reduce the polarization signal, particularly for a face-on viewing geometry like the TW Hya disk. The data provided here offer the most stringent limits to date on the polarized millimeter-wavelength emission from disks around young stars.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Engineering proton conductivity in melanin using metal doping

Long range electrical conduction in biomaterials is an increasingly active area of research, which includes systems such as the conductive pili, proteins, biomacromolecules, biocompatible conductive polymers and their derivatives. One material of particular interest, the human skin pigment melanin, is a long range proton conductor and recently demonstrated as capable of proton-to-electron transduction in a solid-state electrochemical transistor platform. In this work, a novel “doping strategy” is proposed to enhance and control melanin's proton conductivity, potentially enhancing its utility as a transducing material. By chelating the transition metal ion Cu(II) into the bio-macromolecular matrix, free proton concentration and hence conductivity can be modulated. We confirm these observations by demonstrating enhanced performance in a next generation electrochemical transistor. Finally, the underlying mechanism is investigated via the use of a novel in situ hydration-controlled electron paramagnetic resonance study, deducing that the enhanced proton concentration is due to controlling the internal solid-state redox chemistry of the intrinsic polyindolequinone structure. This doping strategy should be open to any transition metal ions that bind to hydroquinone systems (e.g. polydopamine). As such, the tailoring strategy could make other soft solid-state ionic systems more accessible to applications in bioelectronics, leading to the creation of higher performance ion–electron coupled devices

Comparative susceptibility of eastern cottontails and New Zealand white rabbits to classical rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) and RHDV2

Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) is associated with high morbidity and mortality in the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). In 2010, a genetically distinct RHDV named RHDV2 emerged in Europe and spread to many other regions, including North America in 2016. Prior to this study it was unknown if eastern cottontails (ECT(s); Sylvilagus floridanus), one of the most common wild lagomorphs in the United States, were susceptible to RHDV2. In this study, 10 wild-caught ECTs and 10 New Zealand white rabbits (NZWR(s); O. cuniculus) were each inoculated orally with either RHDV (RHDVa/GI.1a; n = 5 per species) or RHDV2 (a recombinant GI.1bP-GI.2; n = 5 per species) and monitored for the development of disease. Three of the five ECTs that were infected with RHDV2 developed disease consistent with RHD and died at 4 and 6 days post-inoculation (DPI). The RHDV major capsid protein/antigen (VP60) was detected in the livers of three ECTs infected with RHDV2, but none was detected in the ECTs infected with RHDV. Additionally, RHD viral RNA was detected in the liver, spleen, intestine and blood of ECTs infected with RHDV2, but not in the ECTs infected with RHDV. RHD viral RNA was detected in urine, oral swabs and rectal swabs in at least two of five ECTs infected with RHDV2. One ECT inoculated with RHDV2 seroconverted and developed a high antibody titre by the end of the experimental period (21 DPI). ECTs inoculated with the classic RHDV did not seroconvert. In comparison, NZWRs inoculated with RHDV2 exhibited high mortality (five of five) at 2 DPI and four of five NZWRs inoculated with RHDV either died or were euthanized at 2 DPI indicating both of these viruses were highly pathogenic to this species. This experiment indicates that ECTs are susceptible to RHDV2 and can shed viral RNA, thereby suggesting this species could be involved in the epidemiology of this virus